Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — DOCTORS (COURT EVIDENCE)

Mr. Woodhouse: asked the Minister without Portfolio whether he will seek to amend the law which prevents doctors from declining to give evidence in court on matters which they have learned in professional consultation with their patients, in order to release them from jeopardy of imprisonment for contempt if they do so decline.

The Minister without Portfolio (Sir Eric Fletcher): This is a matter which will be considered by the Law Reform Committee in the course of its review of the law of evidence.

Mr. Woodhouse: I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. May I ask if he has given consideration to the particular case of a psychiatrist who was compelled in a divorce action earlier this year to give evidence under threat of proceedings for contempt on matters which he had learned from one of the parties to the case in the course of his professional duties, and whether he is aware of the serious anxiety felt by many doctors, particularly psychiatrists, about the implications of such cases in their professional relationship with their clients?

Sir E. Fletcher: I am aware of that case and of the concern felt by the medical profession on this subject, and I have no doubt that these matters will be considered by the Law Reform Committee.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Would the hon. Gentleman consider whether it is wise to increase the number of classes of person who can claim the privilege of not giving evidence in open court?

Sir E. Fletcher: I am aware, and I have no doubt that the Law Reform Committee will be equally aware, that if the present privilege in respect of confidential communications which at present is limited to those giving legal advice were to be extended to doctors there would be other professions which might make similar claims, such as priests and marriage guidance officers, and, of course, there is the case of journalists which has arisen recently.

Oral Answers to Questions — LAND REGISTRATION ACT, 1925

Mr. Carol Johnson: asked the Minister without Portfolio in how many counties and in how many county boroughs, respectively, registration of title to land has been made compulsory on sale under the Land Registration Act, 1925.

Sir Eric Fletcher: The registration of title on the sale of land has been made compulsory in 5 counties: Berkshire, Kent, London, Middlesex and Surrey, and in 14 county boroughs: Blackburn, Canterbury, Coventry, Croydon, Eastbourne, Hastings, Huddersfield, Leicester, Manchester, Oldham, Oxford, Reading, Rochdale and Salford.

Mr. Johnson: Could my hon. Friend hold out any hope of this process being expedited? It is, of course, a very small proportion of the number of counties and county boroughs. Would he agree that the criticism of the burden of conveyancing charges in recent years would be mitigated if land generally were registered throughout the whole country?

Sir E. Fletcher: I would agree with what the hon. Member says in the second part of his supplementary question. With regard to the first part, my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor plans to extend the compulsory system to other areas as rapidly as possible. A programme has been approved for extending the Land Registry as soon as the necessary staff can be recruited, trained and accommodated. On 20th November, an Order in Council was made whereby the compulsory system is to be extended to parts of Warwickshire on 1st February next and to the London Boroughs of New Ham and Barnet on 1st April, 1965.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that there is sufficient staff to handle the registrations at present, and could he possibly see that some of those registrations are expedited?

Sir E. Fletcher: There is a shortage of staff and the bottleneck in extending compulsory registration of land is caused by the difficulty of recruiting the additional staff required and training them.

Oral Answers to Questions — BREACH OF PROMISE (COURT ACTIONS)

Mr. Lipton: asked the Minister without Portfolio whether he will introduce legislation to abolish actions for breach of promise.

Sir Eric Fletcher: No, Sir. Legislation on this subject would not be justified in the present state of Parliamentary business.

Mr. Lipton: Is my hon. Friend aware that as long ago as 1879 this House passed a Motion in favour of abolishing actions for breach of promise? Will he not show good will to all men? If the Government cannot introduce legislation, will he indicate that the Government will view with favour the introduction of a Private Member's Bill to remove this outworn relic?

Sir E. Fletcher: Although this is the season of good will, I regret that I cannot hold out any hope of the Government finding time for legislation on this subject. Any private Member is free to deal with the matter. I would add that so far as I know, there is no evidence of any sustained demand for a change in the law on this subject.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Would the Minister say what has happened to the great pent-up fund of law reform that was going to keep Parliament occupied during the first six months, as promised by the Prime Minister to the League of Labour Lawyers?

Mr. Speaker: Questions should be restricted to the subject of breach of promise.

Mr. Powell: Has it occurred to the hon. Gentleman that there may perhaps be more in his hon. Friend's question than meets the eye, and that there is at present no protection for the present

Government against action in due course for breach of promise?

Sir E. Fletcher: So far, only two out of the six months to which the right hon. Gentleman referred have elapsed, and I can assure him that the present Government will fulfil all their election promises and that within the period of six months that he referred to very substantial measures will be brought before this House relating to law reform.

Oral Answers to Questions — RESTITUTION OF CONJUGAL RIGHTS (COURT ACTIONS)

Mr. Lipton: asked the Minister without Portfolio whether he will introduce legislation to abolish actions for restitution of conjugal rights.

Sir Eric Fletcher: No, Sir. Legislation on this subject would not be justified in the present state of Parliamentary business.

Mr. Lipton: Is my hon. Friend aware that that answer is beginning to sound a little hollow? Will he at least agree that the present procedure is quite obsolete and meaningless and serves no useful purpose whatsoever, and that although this item is not included in the last Labour Party manifesto, there is still some justification for dealing with it without further delay?

Sir E. Fletcher: This particular form of action is not entirely obsolete. It is used to some small extent. In 1963 there were some 38 cases. On any footing I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that this Measure does not call for a very high priority in the dynamic legislative programme of this Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT

School Entrances, Metropolitan Area (Waiting Restrictions)

Mr. Wall: asked the Minister of Transport if he will impose statutory waiting restrictions outside school entrances in the Metropolitan area as school entrance signs are invariably disregarded.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Tom Fraser): I do not accept that school entrance markings are invariably disregarded. Where they are, the usual form


of statutory waiting restriction is often not the right answer. I am, therefore, arranging an experiment with a modified form of restriction. This will be facilitated by the new system of marking waiting and loading restrictions.

Mr. Wall: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that in a recent survey of 250 London schools it was found that the school entrance sign painted on the road was completely ineffective? He has only to walk a few hundred yards from this building to see many cars parked outside school entrances. Will he do his best to expedite the experiment that he talked about?

Mr. Fraser: I am expediting the experiment to the best of my ability. What we have to avoid is preventing spaces outside schools from being used for parking when the children are not attending schools—during school holidays, weekends and those sorts of times. I propose to have this experiment to enable us to judge the restrictions that we can impose on parking outside schools at times when children are likely to be going in and coming out.

Mr. Strauss: Is my right hon. Friend aware that experiments in this matter have been going on for many years and have never led to any satisfactory conclusion? Can he assure us that on this occasion the experiment will really be worth while and that action will follow?

Mr. Fraser: I hope that this experiment will be the exception to the rule.

Mr. Goodhew: Could the right hon. Gentleman make clear what is the object of the experiment? If it is to enable children to cross the road outside their schools, will he bear in mind that this is not always the safest place for them to do so? Very often it is better for them to go to a proper pedestrian crossing nearby.

Mr. Fraser: It is not just a question of children crossing the road outside schools. It is a matter of children running out of school, off the kerb and on to the highway, when vehicles are parked there, and the driver of a moving vehicle having his view obscured with the result that a fatal accident occurs. A good many accidents have occurred as a result of

ice-cream vans being parked near school premises and children stepping out from behind them into the road. These matters are worthy of full consideration and I am doing this as quickly as I can.

Parking Regulations (Disabled Drivers)

Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: asked the Minister of Transport whether he will introduce a scheme of limited exemption from parking regulations for registered disabled drivers.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler): Local authorities operating parking schemes already have powers to grant exemption to severely disabled drivers from charges and time limits. The police everywhere normally exercise discretion in favour of disabled drivers displaying badges issued by local authorities under the scheme sponsored by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health.

Mr. Godman Irvine: Would the hon. Gentleman make certain that disabled drivers are well aware of this position? Would he not agree that a disabled driver who is unable to get somewhere near the place to which he is going has first the difficulty of walking there and then has the difficulty of going back and moving his car at the end of that time? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that cases have been brought to my attention where the information given by the hon. Gentleman has not been brought to the notice of disabled drivers? Will he see that this is done?

Mr. Swingler: We are completely sympathetic to what the hon. Member says. I hope that this Question and Answer will have done something to give publicity to the subject. It is a matter for the exercise of discretion on the part of local authorities and the police. We hope that that discretion will be exercised in favour of disabled drivers.

Mr. Powell: Will the hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. Friend to consider approaching local authorities once again, and particularly those that have not made any concessions under the scheme, to consider whether they will do so? Will he not agree that this scheme, introduced three years ago, has on the whole been of great benefit.

Mr. Swingler: We are certainly prepared to consider the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion. It is a matter for the local authorities and we do not want to keep directing them about exercising discretion of this kind, but if there is evidence that action is not taken to exercise discretion in favour of disabled drivers we will certainly take the matter up.

Mr. Evelyn King: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that most of these civilian disabled have no pensions from public funds arid that they take pride in earning their living and that by the very nature of their complaint that living is largely earned in offices? Is he aware that we are making it quite impossible for these disabled who are working hard in earning a living to reach the offices where they work?

Mr. Swingler: If there is difficulty we shall be glad to have the evidence and see what can be done. We are doing everything possible to take into account the needs of disabled drivers. It is a matter for the local authorities but if evidence of that kind exists we shall be glad to receive it and to take the matter up with them.

Regional Transport Plans

Mr. Awdry: asked the Minister of Transport (1) when he intends to define the boundaries of the regions for his regional transport plans;
(2) what progress has been made with the preparation of the regional transport survey for the region in which the County of Wiltshire is situated.

Mr. Webster: asked the Minister of Transport what regional transport surveys he proposes to institute; and how long he expects the surveys to take.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the Minister of Transport when he expects to produce a regional transport plan for Eastern Scotland; whom he proposes to consult during the preparation of this plan; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Tom Fraser: The planning of transport in the regions will be part of the regional economic planning, the arrangements for which were announced by my right hon. Friend the First Secretary of State on 10th December. My

Department will be taking a full part in the work of the regional planning boards. The boundaries for transport planning will be the same as for economic planning generally in so far as transport can be planned regionally. Whether more intensive studies may be needed in particular areas will be decided in the light of progress made by the Boards and my Department on transport problems generally.

Mr. Awdry: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what body or organisation will carry out these transport surveys and when he thinks this task will be completed? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the Chippenham area the traffic situation will become a great deal worse when the Severn Bridge has been completed? Will he give us some assurance that he will accelerate the construction of the M4, which runs through my constituency?

Mr. Fraser: I have answered a number of Questions together and they raise very general issues. It is a bit much to ask me to extend the matter now in hand and speak about work on the M4. To go back to the general question raised earlier in the hon. Member's supplementary question, in the working out of economic plans in the regions it is of the utmost importance that transport considerations be taken fully into account. The making of a transport plan is essential to the making of an economic plan in a region, but it would be very foolish to endeavour to make a transport plan in isolation. We must, therefore, have these economic plans, with experts on transport taking a full part in their making.

Mr. Webster: Will there be any form of integration with a transport overlord having some say in this matter? How much integration will there be between each section in a regional plan and how far will this have central direction, perhaps from the Ministry of Transport?

Mr. Fraser: There is another Question later on this subject.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the First Secretary indicated that regional plans for eastern Scotland are unlikely to be ready before the middle of next year? Is the right


hon. Gentleman now indicating that the whole question of possible railway closures in this area will not be decided until regional plans are published, in other words, that there will be a further six months of uncertainty?

Mr. Fraser: Not at all. It is my duty to consider each railway closure proposal as it comes forward after I have had a report from the T.U.C.C. and have consulted those of my right hon. Friends who inevitably have an interest in these matters. It is only where we decide, for example, that if effect is given to a closure it would prejudice the further consideration of the needs of that area that we would refuse to consent on those grounds. It might be that we would refuse to consent to closures on other grounds, and it might be that we would consent, but these things have to be looked at on their merits and I hope to do this without undue delay.

Mr. Galbraith: Does not what the right hon. Gentleman has said about railway closures mean that there is no change at all in policy for the closure of railways under this Government from what it was under the previous Government?

Mr. Fraser: I am hoping within a few days to issue a statement about the results of the examination which I have made of closure proposals since I took office. I am quite convinced that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate at once when he sees this statement that there is a very different result with a different Government in office.

Mr. William Hamilton: Do my right hon. Friend's answers to these questions imply that although the previous Government produced economic plans, for example for central Scotland, they did not formulate or begin to formulate regional transport plans to go along with those economic plans? Is that what my right hon. Friend means?

Mr. Fraser: I do not think that the previous Administration took this matter far enough. I do not think that they examined the transport requirements of regions when they considered economic plans. In any case, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith) will shortly see the outcome of our considerations.

Nationalised Transport Advisory Council

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: asked the Minister of Transport (1) what advice he has received from the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council set up by Section 55 of the Transport Act, 1962, for the purpose of advising him on questions relating to the co-ordination of nationalised transport undertakings; and if he will make a statement;
(2) what chairman, vice-chairman, or other members he has appointed to the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council under Section 55(2)(a) of the Transport Act, 1962.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Minister of Transport if he has now decided who is to be chairman of the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council.

Mr. Tom Fraser: I have not as yet sought the advice of the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council. As I told the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) on 16th December, I will make a statement about its future as soon as I am ready to do so.

Mr. Wilson: Does not the right hon. Gentleman recollect that, when his party was in opposition, it frequently complained that the Conservative Government were not co-ordinating nationalised transport policies? Is it not, therefore, astonishing, if that view was correct, that the new Government have done nothing about making use of the provision of the Act which has been in existence since 1962 and which could have been operated at any time?

Mr. Fraser: When we were in opposition we frequently criticised the Conservative Government for their lack of interest in bringing about transport co-ordination generally. It is true that the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) had his Advisory Council under the Act, but it met only four times under his chairmanship. I am now getting down to the job of making a plan for transport co-ordination generally, which will obviously take me outside the scope of the present Advisory Council. However, I will, as I find it necessary so to do, call meetings of the Council.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Will the right hon. Gentleman recall that I have been good enough to put down four Questions to him in four weeks about who the new chairman of this very important body is to be? Is he further aware that, on each occasion, he has given a dusty answer? We are rather bewildered by all these rumours that Dr. Beeching is to be the new chairman and we do not know whether or not they are true. Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that, since our dynamic new Government came to power, this very important body in nationalised transport has not been called together to advise the Minister?

Mr. Speaker: Order. This seems a little eloquent by way of a supplementary question. Perhaps the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) will bring it to an end.

Mr. Fraser: I am sorry that the hon. Member should be so confused about the future of the Advisory Council and about who will be its chairman. I have no immediate intention of changing the identity of the Chairman of the Council, who is myself. I have, incidentally, on a number of occasions in the past two months met the chairmen of all the nationalised transport undertakings.

Mr. Powell: On all these matters, is the right hon. Gentleman still waiting for Beeching? When are we to have an end to the pantomime of disclosures and semi-disclosures dropped through the Press week after week without a statement to this House?

Mr. Fraser: There has been much speculation in the Press in the last few weeks and a lot of it has been embarrassing to me. I do not know whether that speculation is based on disclosures or semi-disclosures. I shall do my best, subject to your permission, Mr. Speaker, to put an end to speculation by making a statement at the end of Question Time.

Motorists (Fatigue)

Mr. Longden: asked the Minister of Transport if he will introduce legislation to ensure that, when a motorist is overcome by the approach of sleep from whatever cause and pulls into the side of the road to rest, he will not thereby render himself liable to prosecution.

Mr. Swingler: No, Sir. I am not aware of any reasons for introducing legislation on this subject.

Mr. Longden: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I asked this Question because recently a motorist was prosecuted for pulling into the side of the road and going to sleep in the back of his car when he felt too tired to drive on? This does happen from time to time. Even if the fatigue in such cases is the lamentable result of a surfeit of alcohol, surely the safest and most sensible thing to do is to pull up? If the law takes such drivers to task for doing so, is not the law an ass?

Mr. Swingler: This is something for the exercise of common sense rather than legislation. We cannot legislate to relieve people of the liabilities of creating obstruction on the roads. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] That is what is implied. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Obviously, motorists must exercise their judgment if they are being overcome by fatigue and move off the main highway on to some place in which they are not creating an obstruction but where they can nevertheless have a rest. This matter is best left to the judgment of motorists.

Mr. Longden: There was no question of obstruction in the case I quoted.

Mr. Strauss: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is a genuine legal difficulty in this respect? Under the Motorway Regulations and the Clearway Orders it is illegal for a motorist who is overtired and wants to park on the verge for a little rest to do so, even if he is not causing an obstruction? I appreciate that this is a difficult subject, but would not my hon. Friend give it further consideration?

Mr. Swingler: I am willing to do that but there are a number of difficulties. It is suggested that we take legislative action but there are places on these highways where a motorist is permitted to draw off and go to sleep in the back of the car if he can. There are ways and means whereby he can rest without causing an obstruction. In view of the opinions expressed, however, we will certainly give this further consideration.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that the law allows a


motorist to pull into a lay-by on a main road and sleep? If the law does not allow it, will the hon. Gentleman introduce legislation to clarify the position?

Mr. Swingler: I would have thought myself that this was something that we should leave to the motorist, to exercise good judgment in the interests of himself and of other motorists by finding the best place to rest without causing obstruction. However, as I have said, we will consider these representations again. The difficulties must not be under-estimated.

Oral Answers to Questions — RAILWAYS

Proposed Closures

Mr. Mathew: asked the Minister of Transport what criteria, other than those already announced by his predecessor, he intends to use when making decisions on Transport Users' Consultative Committee reports on proposed rail closures.

Mr. Swingler: As my right hon. Friend explained to the House on 4th November, he proposes to take more account of the wider social and economic consequences of rail closures than did his predecessor.

Mr. Mathew: Will the Joint Parliamentary Secretary give some details? This really means that in the case of those branch lines in respect of which notice of closure has been given by the Railways Board and in respect of which a T.U.C.C. inquiry is to be held, there is to be no change whatsoever. Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the letter which was sent to a constituent of mine in Sidmouth, where the T.U.C.C. is due to sit at the end of January, I believe, which stated that the closure of that line would be postponed until there was a regional survey, was in fact another breach of promise by the Government?

Mr. Swingler: No, Sir. There has been no breach of promise. I cannot prejudge my right hon. Friend's consideration of any particular T.U.C.C. report. We shall consider any T.U.C.C. report which has a bearing on the hardship involved, but we shall also consider the wider question of the social costs and benefits of transport in these areas.

Mr. Galbraith: Could the hon. Gentleman be a little more specific? What does

he mean by "take more account of the wider social consequences"? What more could be done? [Laughter.] It is all very well for hon. Members opposite to laugh, but what more could be done than taking account of industrial development, housing, population growth, the pattern of road transport and the condition of the roads? What further social considerations can the Minister take into account? Will he tell the House in detail?

Mr. Swingler: It is not a question of what could be done. The Government are establishing a network of regional planning boards and councils in order to survey comprehensively all these questions in relation to the future population and economic needs of the areas. These are the matters that we are taking into account.

Mr. Lipton: How long does it take the Ministry to come to a decision when, as in the case of East Brixton station, the Transport Users' Consultative Committee recommended that the station should not be closed?

Mr. Swingler: How long it takes depends upon the complexity of the issues that may be involved. Again, I do not want to prejudge any particular case. We shall give to each case the amount of consideration that it warrants.

Mr. Powell: Are we to understand that the closures are not to take place until the planning boards and councils have done their work? Otherwise they are absolutely irrelevant.

Mr. Swingler: I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman heard my right hon. Friend's statement on 4th November setting out clearly the criteria which we are applying and the fact that we will judge whether a proposed closure is major by taking into account the regional needs.

Mr. Webster: Will the Parliamentary Secretary be precise and tell us of one single criterion which is additional to what there was before?

Mr. Swingler: The criterion which is additional is the assessment of social costs and benefits and the regional transport needs.

Mr. Galbraith: But these are general terms. Will the hon. Gentleman tell us


precisely what the difference is, instead of talking in general terms which mean absolutely nothing?

Mr. Strauss: rose—

Mr. Speaker: That has been asked before. Mr. Strauss.

Mr. Strauss: Is it not a fact that while the criteria which the Government will consider are exactly the same as previously, the Minister will give far greater weight to these social considerations than the previous Government did?

Mr. Swingler: I am sorry to be repetitious, but I must say again that we are introducing as a criterion the needs of regional planning on a comprehensive basis; we are looking not merely at one form of transport and one system of accountancy for one form of transport, but at all the forms of transport in relation to one another, taking into account the social costs and benefits involved.

Mr. Webster: asked the Minister of Transport whether he will issue a general direction to the Railways Board to notify him as soon as possible of major closure proposals, in order that regional surveys can be instituted without delay.

Mr. Tom Fraser: No, Sir. The institution of work in connection with regional planning is not dependent on the publication of closure proposals by the Board though, as I explained in my statement on 4th November, regional planning considerations will be taken into account in deciding whether passenger closure proposals should proceed through the full statutory procedure.

Mr. Webster: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his maiden statement as Minister caused a great deal of doubt whether there was any change of policy regarding rail closures by his Government compared with the previous Government? Would he not agree that it is essential that we should have this clarified, preferably not by a statement made on Christmas morning? It is very much to be hoped that the matter will be speeded up. That is the reason for my Question.

Mr. Fraser: I shall speed it up all I can. I shall not make a statement on

Christmas morning. The hon. Gentleman has asked me to give a direction to the Board which would require it to decide which were major closures and which were not. Clearly, it is impossible for the Board to decide that.

Mr. Powell: As my hon. Friend's question refers to regional surveys, would the right hon. Gentleman kindly answer the question which was put to him, on Question No. 15, by my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Mr. Awdry)—namely, what bodies are to do this work in the respective regions? Until we know this and until they are set up, there is bound to be continuing uncertainty.

Mr. Fraser: If I were to respond to the request made just now, I should have thought that I would be increasing the uncertainty. Until the regional boards are set up and until the persons who are to serve on them are identified, clearly it is impossible for me to say who will be on the boards and who will represent transport interests on them. My Ministry will, of course, be represented on them. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we are treating the matter with the utmost seriousness. If the House will be patient a little longer, we shall get the boards established, and then it will be seen that the transport requirements of the region are adequately safeguarded as the boards get down to work.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Is the right hon. Gentleman going to make his statement to the House, and if not, why not?

Mr. Fraser: The statement that I said I would issue within a few days will be about closures. These statements have not been made to the House in the past. Normally they have been made by the Railways Board and not by the Minister. All I have indicated is that I have been making a few decisions and think it proper that I should let the public know what the decisions are by means of putting out a statement. On the other hand, I could just leave it to the Railways Board, as my predecessor did.

Mr. Mathew: asked the Minister of Transport if he will give an assurance that, when authorising railway closures in


respect of which a Transport Users' Consultative Committee has found that hardship will result by depriving school children of transport to school, he will make it a condition of his assent to the closure that adequate and comparable alternative transport will be provided by the Railways Board.

Mr. Swingler: Responsibility for providing transport to the nearest school for children living beyond walking distance rests on the local education authority. When considering a proposed closure, my right hon. Friend will consult the Secretaries of State for Education and Science and for Scotland as necessary, and will take into account any hardship it might cause to school children and any additional cost to public funds of providing alternative arrangements.

Mr. Mathew: Is the hon. Member aware that when the Railways Board instituted recent inquiries in the south-west of England it stated that it considered it to be the responsibility of the local authority and not the Board's responsibility to provide alternative accommodation for school children? In view of the fact that Section 56 of the Transport Act contemplates the provision of alternative services and most certainly does not differentiate between the various types of user of the railways, is not this indefensible?

Mr. Swingler: No Sir. But, of course, I am completely sympathetic with what the hon. Member said, which is that the Railways Board has responsibility only for the railways services and that we have the responsibility for providing adequate transport arrangements. I can assure the hon. Member that in considering any report on this matter, including hardship to school children, we shall ensure that adequate transport arrangements are made, whether by rail or by some other form of transport.

Isle of Wight

Mr. Woodnutt: asked the Minister of Transport what study he has made of the report of the Transport Users' Consultative Committee and the memorandum submitted by the Isle of Wight County Council on the Isle of Wight railways; and if he has now made a decision on their future.

Mr. Swingler: We cannot complete our study of the Railways Board's closure proposals until we have received certain essential information from the Board. Whatever my right hon. Friend's final decision may be, however, I can assure the hon. Member that the services will still be in operation throughout next summer.

Mr. Woodnutt: That last remark is at least a comfort for next year, but does not the hon. Gentleman think it disgraceful that a decision has not yet been made, particularly bearing in mind that the Labour candidate in the Isle of Wight at the General Election gave an assurance that if we had a Labour Government the Isle of Wight railways would not be closed? Is not this another example of a breach of promise by hon. Gentlemen opposite?

Mr. Swingler: The hon. Gentleman is getting a little ahead of himself and of us. I am not prejudging anything about our consideration of the report. That fact is that it had already gone through the statutory procedure and so we had an obligation to consider it and discuss it with the Railways Board, and the hon. Gentleman will know that that is a complicated matter. I hope he will be reassured by the fact that we have relieved anxiety in the Isle of Wight by stating that we have taken a decision to keep the services in operation throughout next summer.

Liner Trains

Mr. Powell: asked the Minister of Transport what sums he estimates will be advanced by him to the Railways Board in this and in the coming financial year in respect of the project for liner trains.

Mr. Longbottom: asked the Minister of Transport when he expects the Beeching Report proposals for liner freight trains to be implemented; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Tom Fraser: The Railways Board hopes to introduce the first experimental liner trains next summer, if early agreement is reached with the unions on the principle of "open" depots. My predecessor approved investment of £6 million for liner trains; of this about


£700,000 will be spent in 1964. Investment for 1965 will depend on the date of introduction of the services.

Mr. Powell: Is there anything which the right hon. Gentleman can do, or is doing, to help the Railways Board in obtaining the conditions necessary to initiate this very important scheme?

Mr. Fraser: I have discussed this very important scheme with the Chairman of the Railways Board. He is continuing his discussions with the unions. I believe that it is his wish that I should not intervene in those discussions at the present time. I hope that they will be brought to a satisfactory conclusion so that the liner trains can start next summer as planned.

Mr. Longbottom: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many people recognise the difficulties involved in this case between the Railways Board and the unions and will be grateful to know that there is a possibility of these liner trains starting next summer? While I appreciate the difficulty in which the right hon. Gentleman is placed, may I ask him to do all in his power to promote an agreement between the unions and the Board on this subject?

Mr. Fraser: If it seems necessary for me to "barge in" I will do so, but at the moment I would prefer to allow the Railways Board and the unions to carry on their discussions.

Land

Mr. Richard: asked the Minister of Transport whether he will issue a general direction, in the public interest, to the Railways Board to undertake a review of the land they hold, with a view to securing the release of the maximum amount of land for municipal housing purposes.

Mr. Tom Fraser: It would not be appropriate for me to issue such a direction. In general the disposal of surplus railway land is a matter within the management responsibility of the British Railways Board.
I would also refer my hon. Friend to the Answer he received from my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade on 10th December.

Mr. Richard: While thanking the Minister for that Answer, may I ask him whether he is aware that in the Metropolitan area virtually the only available building land which does not need a house to be pulled down in order to build municipal housing on it is railway land? Can he do anything at all to speed up the release of this land for municipal housing purposes, particularly in the Metropolis?

Mr. Fraser: I very much hope that the announcement made the other day about the restriction on office building in London will make it clear to the Railways Board, among others, that the very expensive and valuable land which it has available for development will not be developed for the purposes of building offices, and that it may therefore become available for the building of houses.

Mr. Galbraith: But is that wise from the transport point of view? Surely if the railways have land available near a railway station, that is precisely the land which ought to be used for building offices, from a transport point of view? Will the right hon. Gentleman have a few words with the First Secretary of State to see whether it is possible to make some relaxation of the restrictions so that the railways may build offices, if they choose to do so, on land near railway stations?

Mr. Fraser: It would ease the commuter problem very considerably if employment were provided very close to the terminal point at which the workers disembark. I know that from this point of view the Railways Board is actively considering to what extent it can have development above railway stations as well as on railway lines nearby. But a great deal of the land which includes railway lines, which my hon. Friend suggested could be made available for housing, is not alongside railway stations at all.

Mr. Peter Emery: Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that before any land is released by the Railways Board, full consideration has been given to using the land near stations for car parking facilities for people using the railways? Does he realise that this is a considerable problem in areas outside London? The railways are attempting to encourage people to use commuter services, but these people


have to block up many streets by car parking before they can get to the stations.

Mr. Fraser: The hon. Member makes a very good point. It is very desirable that some of these open spaces which are created by the demolition of properties alongside railway stations, should provide accommodation for car parking—I should have thought in many cases multi-storey car parks. That is a very desirable development, but I do not want to say more than I have said because the disposal of the land is a matter for the Railways Board.

Darlington-Richmond Line

Mr. Kitson: asked the Minister of Transport when he will make a statement about the future of the Darlington to Richmond railway line.

Mr. Tom Fraser: Within the next few days.

Mr. Kitson: Does not the Minister consider that from last January until now is rather a long time, since that is when the transport users' consultative committee last met to consider the matter? Will he give the same assurance as my hon. Friend gave that, as the British Transport Commission admitted £97,000 of receipts to the transport consultative committee, he will at least see me before a decision is taken?

Mr. Fraser: I am very willing to have a brief word with the hon. Member and I should like to have a word with him today if he could find that convenient, because I am on the point of reaching a decision. I have been discussing this closure with the Board only this week, and I want now to reach a decision. The hon. Member mentioned last January. I would point out that the transport users' consultative committee's report was received in March of this year.

Mr. Powell: Are we to gather that this is not a major closure and is not a decision in arriving at which he is dependent upon any transport survey or plan for the region?

Mr. Fraser: No. The right hon. Gentleman should not draw any such conclusion from what I have just said.

Mr. Kitson: Why is it not coming under the survey?

Mr. Fraser: The hon. Member must not confuse the issue. I have said that I have to take decisions on these matters on their merits, and that I am seeking to do. I thought that I had gone pretty far in giving the hon. Member an invitation to see me today. I can tell him that I will make a decision within a few days.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROADS

Ombersley By-Pass

Mr. Peter Walker: asked the Minister of Transport whether he will now sanction the commencement of the preparation of detailed plans for the Ombersley by-pass on the A.449 road.

Mr. Tom Fraser: No, Sir. To do so would mean diverting resources from other more urgent road schemes.

Mr. Walker: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that after the completion of the northern link in February there will be a considerable increase in traffic on the A.449 and there will be several miles of dual carriageway on either side of this village which has a very narrow street through it? Is he aware that this will make it one of the most dangerous villages in the Midlands? Will he examine it again?

Mr. Fraser: The hon. Member will recognise my difficulty. The trunk road programme was published in June this year by my predecessor and this scheme was not included. Our economic and financial resources are very heavily committed and if I were now to bring forward this scheme it would have to be at the expense of some other scheme. I do not want to hold out any hope that I will be able to do that.

Controlled Pedestrian Crossings

Mr. Peter Walker: asked the Minister of Transport whether he will make a statement on the conclusions he has reached from the experiments made in the use of compulsory pedestrian crossings.

Mr. Tom Fraser: The results of the pedestrian control experiment in London


require very careful study before conclusions can be reached. This is proceeding. I will make a statement as soon as possible

Mr. Walker: Could the right hon. Gentleman give us any idea of how long is "as soon as possible"?

Mr. Fraser: "As soon as possible" must be rather soon, because the experimental regulations run out at the end of March, which is not very far away. "As soon as possible" must be before then.

Mr. Lipton: Will my right hon. Friend say whether in connection with this matter he intends to abandon the Panda crossing system which has proved a complete failure?

Mr. Fraser: I do not want to prejudge what I may do when I make a statement a little later.

M.1 Motorway (Screens)

Mr. Gurden: asked the Minister of Transport when the screens will be re-erected on the M.1 motorway to prevent accidents caused by sudden blinding from headlights.

Mr. Swingler: These temporary hessian screens were designed to simulate hedges and shrubs in order to provide information about the optimum height and spacing for central reserve planting to reduce the effect of dazzle. We now have this information and we do not intend to re-erect the screens. The next part of the experiment, about to start on M.2, is to plant various shrubs to see how they stand up to motorway conditions. On M.1 we still have the experiment with metal mesh screen as an anti-dazzle device.

Mr. Gurden: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that this is the first time that there has been a retrograde step in the construction of things on the motorway, and that now a crash barrier is all the more necessary since there are likely to be more crashes on the M.1 as a result of the removal of the screens, which ought to be made permanent?

Mr. Swingler: No, Sir; we do not regard this as a retrograde step. All these measures have been regarded in the past, and are still regarded, as experimental. As I have said, a number of

experiments have been proceeding from which conclusions have been drawn, but without more information we cannot arrive at final conclusions about what we should do in the future.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is there not a great deal of public anxiety that these things in connection with the M.1 move so slowly? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the matter of headlights has been discussed for years? Also, what thought has been given to the prevention of accidents by reason of sudden fog on the M.1?

Mr. Swingler: That is another question. I regret that these things are moving slowly. These experiments are very difficult. There is a conflict of view and evidence about the best measures to take to persuade motorists themselves to reduce dazzle as well as about the best possible form of central reservation. However, we shall continue with a number of experiments, and I hope that we shall be able to speed up the process of arriving at conclusions.

Mr. Doig: Would my hon. Friend agree that the first retrograde step on motorways was when one of his predecessors refused the extra 1 per cent. capital cost to illuminate them, and that if that had been done there would have been no question of any anti-dazzle device being necessary?

Mr. Swingler: My hon. Friend's supplementary question goes a good deal wider than the original Question and requires some research. I will do the necessary research, and if he will table a further question, I will answer it.

Wokingham Road, Reading (Pedestrian Crossing)

Mr. van Straubenzee: asked the Minister of Transport what proposals he has for installing a controlled pedestrian crossing with lights in the Wokingham Road at Reading.

Mr. Peter Emery: asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware of the need for a controlled pedestrian crossing in the Wokingham Road at Reading; and what action he proposes to take to provide it.

Mr. Swingler: We are aware of the representations that have been made for


a signal-controlled pedestrian crossing here but on present information a crossing is not justified. However, a comprehensive review of pedestrian crossing policy will take place during the coming year. My right hon. Friend hopes to be able to make an announcement about this shortly.

Mr. van Straubenzee: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that that reply will inevitably cause disappointment in the part of Reading to which the Question refers? Will he take into account the very restrained and responsible representations which have been made, particularly by the body of parents represented in the school which is very much affected? Does he not feel that this is a very special case in the Borough of Reading which ought to be dealt with ahead of the major review that he has indicated will take place?

Mr. Swingler: The Answer that I have given is based on the information that we have had to date. We appreciate the local feeling on this subject. Our representatives are awaiting certain new information from the Reading Borough Council about traffic flows and the problem at this place, and it may be that in the light of that information we shall take a different view. On the basis of our study of the traffic flows at the moment we consider that a pedestrian crossing is not justified, but when we receive the new information I will let the hon. Gentleman know the results of our further study.

Mr. Emery: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the information that he requires from the Reading Borough Council has been sent to his Ministry? Does he realise that, although the original application was turned down in February of this year, because of the growth of public feeling the council resubmitted the application? Would he, therefore, be willing to receive a deputation of people from Reading who feel so terribly strongly about this situation in an area where accidents happen very regularly?

Mr. Swingler: I appreciate the anxiety. I think the best thing would be for us first of all to consider the new information which has not yet been studied and discuss the matter further with Reading

Borough Council. We shall be very pleased to receive a deputation if the matter continues to be felt unsatisfactory.

Heavy Lorries (Off-Street Parking)

Mr. Dudley Smith: asked the Minister of Transport what progress is being made in his department's efforts to persuade local authorities in the London and Greater London area to provide off-street parking facilities for heavy lorries.

Mr. Tom Fraser: My Department has continued to encourage local authorities. I understand that the City of London now has certain plans but that otherwise only one other authority is considering what might be done. Clearly much more is needed. Public off-street parking for about 1,200 lorries has so far been provided commercially. I have no powers to provide lorry parks but the Greater London Council will have. I hope that it will be prepared to use them where appropriate and to encourage the boroughs to meet more local needs.

Mr. Smith: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the problem is increasing weekly and that more and more lorries are parking in residential roads in Greater London, causing grave embarrassment to local people who are suffering considerable loss of amenity value? Is it not time that greater urgency was initiated by the Ministry?

Mr. Fraser: These lorries parking in residential streets are a very great nuisance. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that I have no legislative power to do anything about it. I cannot provide the car parks for off-street parking for lorries. I think that we could do very much more than has been done so far, however. I am willing to have discussions with the local authorities, as I have said before, and I am making an appeal to the Greater London Council to do a great deal more than has been done hitherto. I will do all I can to bring pressure to bear on the local authorities to provide these facilities.

Barton Swing Bridge

Mr. Carter-Jones: asked the Minister of Transport how many times at peak periods in the morning and evening during the past six months the Barton swing bridge has been closed to road traffic.

Mr. Tom Fraser: In the six months April to September this year, the bridge was closed on 98 occasions in the morning peak and 97 in the evening peak.

Mr. Carter-Jones: In view of his Answer, will the Minister give an assurance that he will review the arrangements for the swinging of this bridge, because thousands of people are held up going to and from work and traffic congestion extends to many towns in the area? Is he aware that this area supplies workers for the Trafford Park Estate in Manchester?

Mr. Fraser: If my hon. Friend will let me have information to show that very serious delays are being caused, I shall most certainly be willing to have another look at the matter. My information is that the average delay to traffic caused by the opening and closing of this bridge is about five minutes and that considerable restriction is put upon the operators of the canal as to the occasions on which the bridge may be opened. But the Manchester Ship Canal is a rather important waterway in this country. and it is important that vessels should be able to use it. I should be glad if my hon. Friend would give me evidence on which I might have a further review of this matter made.

Humber Bridge

Mr. Wall: asked the Minister of Transport if he will now reconsider the building of a Humber bridge, so as to open up many of the Eastern Counties and provide an alternative north-south route.

Mr. Swingler: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer given to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Hull, East (Commander Pursey) on 9th December.

Mr. Wall: Does that reply mean that the Minister is considering the Humber bridge as a national project? Is he aware that the total volume of goods passing through Hull Docks is over £500 million a year and that £17 million has been spent on their modernisation? In view of the fact that it is thought that the bridge will cost far less than the original estimate, does he not agree that it ranks for consideration as a national rather than a regional project?

Mr. Swingler: It is a considerable project, and that is why it will inevitably take some time to consider all the traffic and costs figures which the Humber Bridge Board has supplied. But we take the matter very seriously. It is a project which may have tremendous potentiality. We will speed up the study as quickly as possible and let the Board and hon. Members know the results of our study as soon as possible.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Would the hon. Member discuss with the Minister of Power my suggestion that the cost of this highway might be shared between the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Power by building across the Humber a barrage by which electricity could be generated? Traffic could be carried on top of the barrage. Would he discuss that with the Minister of Power?

Mr. Swingler: We are always glad to share the cost of these enormously expensive projects with someone else. I will certainly have a word with the Minister of Power about it.

Dorset and South-West England

Mr. Evelyn King: asked the Minister of Transport if he is aware of the contribution made to export earnings by the tourist industry in Dorset and south-west England; and whether in view of this he will devote additional resources towards the provision of trunk roads in the area.

Mr. Swingler: This is already being done, to the extent compatible with the many other important demands upon the road programme.

Mr. King: Is the Minister aware that in summer time the population in these areas is trebled or quadrupled and that traffic along the main trunk roads for many hours in August is reduced to a speed below that of a horse and cart? Does he agree that that image is not desirable? While I understand his difficulties, will he bear in mind the thought that Dorset is not getting its fair share of what it is proposed to spend nationally on roads?

Mr. Swingler: We are aware of the considerable seasonal problem. As the hon. Member may have seen, there was


a debate on the Adjournment on 14th December, in which I laid out the not-inconsiderable programme which we are carrying out and which is projected for the next few years on the A.38 and the A.30. We are very much aware, from representations which we have received, of the needs of the area. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that part of the country will get its fair share of the allocation.

TRANSPORT (CO-ORDINATION OF SERVICES)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. STRAUSS: To ask the Minister of Transport what action he is taking to bring about the integration of the transport services.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Tom Fraser): With permission, I should like to answer Written Question No. 16.
I have been considering the most suitable method of achieving greater coordination in the field of transport. Among other things, I have been studying the way in which the best use could be made of Dr. Beeching's experience as Chairman of the Railways Board.
One possibility would have been for him to produce, with suitable assistance, a report on co-ordination based on such full-time study as he was able to give to the problem before he returned to I.C.I., from which he was originally seconded.
Since it is Dr. Beeching's desire to return to I.C.I. by the middle of next year, I have come to the conclusion that it would not be practicable for him to carry out the sort of study the Government want, in the way in which we think it should be done, during the time which he could devote to it.
I am, therefore, making other arrangements for the execution of the study and I hope to be able to make a statement about them after the Recess. In the meantime, I need hardly say that I have Dr. Beeching's assurance that, whatever form the study takes, I shall have the full benefit of his advice during the months while he remains Chairman of the Railways Board.

Mr. Strauss: My right hon. Friend is taking active steps to bring about the integration of the transport services. Is he aware that everyone will agree that a further survey is very necessary to achieve this? Has he in mind appointing some one or a committee to make a report to him? Has he in mind that that report should not take very long but that he should be able to give a decision within a few months either about the person to be appointed or a committee which is to be set up?

Mr. Fraser: In approaching this matter immediately on taking office, I reached the conclusion that this was not the kind of study I should want to give to a large representative committee to work on. I thought that that would take much too long and probably would not yield results at the end of the day. It was for that reason that I have been giving consideration to whether Dr. Beeching could help me with this study. He will still be able to help me, but not in the way I had originally in mind.
I think that it will probably be necessary for this study to be undertaken by a very small group of people who, I should think, would almost inevitably have to work under my own control, because I do not want to put in hand a study which might take one, two or three years to complete. This is something which I want to have completed during the course of 1965, and, I hope, long before the end of 1965.

Mr. Powell: While I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would agree that it is undesirable that a statement of any importance should be made in answer to a Question for Written Answer, may I say to him that I understand there might have been special reasons in this case which make this exceptionally admissible? When his statement, in due course, is made it will require very careful consideration.
In the meantime, in reference to something that the right hon. Gentleman said earlier this morning, may I draw his attention again to the disclosures and semi-disclosures which he admitted had taken place and ask whether he is taking action to ensure that this does not occur in future?

Mr. Fraser: I am obliged to the right hon. Member for what he said in the


first place. I could merely have allowed the Answer to go into HANSARD in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss), but I thought that hon. Members on both sides of the House would have thought that a rather hole-in-the-corner way of giving the Answer. I therefore chose to do it in this way.
The right hon. Member said that I admitted disclosures or semi-disclosures, but I did not. There has been a great deal of speculation. From what I have said I think that it will be apparent that a great many newspapers have been widely off the mark. I never had in mind that Dr. Beeching would become a great supremo or overlord with executive powers over all forms of nationalised transport in the country, but that is a story which was heavily run in the newspapers.
There has been much speculation because Dr. Beeching attracts a great deal of attention. In the whole of this discussion much more attention has been drawn to a person who might have undertaken the study than to the study itself.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us a little more about what will be the content and scope of his substantive statement when he makes it? Will it define the terms of reference and scope of inquiry of this committee or working party? Will it make clear the degree, if any, of independent judgment which the committee is to bring to bear and also deal with the time-table of the expected action since, if the terms of reference are controversial—as they may be—the time-table would be very important, as the right hon. Gentleman's tenure of office may not be very protracted?

Mr. Fraser: I have every confidence that my tenure of office will be a rather long one. The right hon. and learned Member, in asking me what may be the content of my statement, is inviting me to make the statement now and not later. I should have thought that the House would have wished me to clear up the speculation about the future of Dr. Beeching at the earliest possible moment. I should have thought the House would think it a little precipitate on my part if I were, at the same time, to make up my mind as to the form the study will take in future.
I would rather think about this, and give a comprehensive and informative statement to the House, instead of giving information now about some aspects, which would lead to more speculation between now and then.

Mr. Longbottom: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the very real work of co-ordination which is being undertaken between the Road Haulage Association and the British Railways Board on wayleaves? In drawing up of the committee's membership, will he bear in mind that over the last 12 months considerable efforts and results have been achieved?

Mr. Fraser: Yes, I am aware of the co-ordination which has gone on so far. but co-ordination of transport has to be taken very much farther. That is why I propose to make the study.

Mr. Doughty: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us today the name of the successor to Dr. Beeching? When he considers the terms of reference of the committee, will he bear in mind that he should avoid placing an obligation on it to subsidise rail by road transport and that the costs should be kept separate? There also remains a duty to see that the railways lose as little money as possible.

Mr. Fraser: I want the railways to lose as little money as possible within reason and having regard to the services which they must provide for the people. The hon. and learned Member asked me to name the successor to Dr. Beeching. I thought I had cleared that up by what I had said. I have not finally decided whether there will be a successor to Dr. Beeching or not. Does the hon. and learned Member mean a successor as Chairman of the Railways Board?

Mr. Doughty: I meant as chairman of the committee. I assume that the person concerned would be chairman of the committee and Dr. Beeching will not now be that chairman.

Mr. Fraser: I am obliged to the hon. and learned Member. I thought that when I got to that point of my reply the hon. and learned Member might be thinking of a successor as Chairman of the Railways Board, rather than who would be the successor who might make the


study. I am trying to take the House into my confidence. I have tried to explain that it might be better for me to undertake the study myself with assistance from informed people outside, informed people who are not part of my Department.
I do not want to say that that is exactly how it will be done, because from the people outside whom I may invite to assist me in this work it may very well emerge that they would prefer to form a little steering group over which a prominent person from outside would preside. If so, it would be necessary to give such a steering group terms of reference; but if I were to preside myself it would not be necessary to draw up terms of reference; as I should inform the House of what I proposed to do.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is the Minister aware that the whole subject of integration has been very much covered by the Geddes Committee, which is examining the road haulage licensing system, and, in particular, the question of track costs? Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Committee to expedite its report? Will he undertake that the report, when presented to him, will be published? Will he further undertake not to make any precipitate decision on this subject until this Committee has reported?

Mr. Fraser: In undertaking this study it will be very necessary to take account of what the Geddes Committee recommends. That Committee covers a very small part of the business of transport co-ordination. The study must begin before we get the report of the Geddes Committee, which, I understand, will be reporting in the spring of next year. I hope to have advice from Lord Geddes in the study which we will undertake.

He will expect his findings to be taken into account, and I should have thought that I would discharge my duty the better by having discussions with Lord Geddes as the study proceeds.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I think that we must remember that if we trespass in terms of time it is upon that very valuable commodity, private Members' time.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Bowden): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a short business statement.
It has been represented that there would be advantage in arranging the business for Tuesday, 19th January, so that if there is time debate can arise on the Fifth Report from the Estimates Committee in the last Session of the last Parliament relating to Treasury Control of Establishments.
The business for the remainder of the week will be as already announced, with the exception that on Friday, 22nd January, progress on the Ministerial Salaries and Members' Pensions Bill will be limited to the Committee stage.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Will the two subjects of the Estimates Committee be taken separately or together?

Mr. Bowden: I understand that they are separate. Military expenditure overseas will come first and the other matter will come second.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. O'Malley.]

ANTIQUE DEALERS (RINGS)

12.13 p.m.

Mr. R. Chichester-Clark: I am grateful for this opportunity of raising once again in the House the shabby practice of the "knockout".
May I begin by saying how sorry I am that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle), who, with the Sunday Times, has played such a leading part in uncovering the squalid practice, is not able, for various reasons, to be here today. May I also say that my hon. Friend and myself are fully conscious of the fact that, while the art world is from time to time riddled with these practices, especially in jewellery and silver, these are by no means the only fields in which rings and knockouts occur. It may be that if he catches your eye, Sir, my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) will mention some of the other fields.
After recent revelations concerning this form of commercial brigandry, which is really what it is, I think that the House is fairly familiar with how these rings operate, but to get it on the record perhaps I may quote something which I have borrowed from elsewhere and which I have somewhat adapted. It describes fairly well and succinctly the operations of the ring. It says:
A group of antique dealers decide to apportion the lots at a given sale, in advance, so that no underbidder may bid against the party chiefly interested. The antiques, therefore, change hands at a price much below their market value. This value is established at a second sale outside the auction room and the difference between the two prices is divided between the antique dealers concerned as a dividend offered in exchange for forbearance.
That fairly well sums up the method. But I should perhaps add that in some cases—this is especially true in the provinces—it is not necessary to reach agreement or apportionment beforehand. This is because one member of the ring in given areas knows another and because in many cases, after many incidents, practice has made perfect. There are also many occasions when there is more than one knockout. There can be two or three, and these are attended, among others, by small men,

unflatteringly referred to by the larger members of the ring as "parasites". These are apt to drop out after the first round, although sometimes they go as far as the second round of the knockout.
These are interesting people, because it is undoubtedly true that some of them possess no premises. Possibly some of them have never bought a stick of furniture or anything else of that kind in their lives, and they are there merely because they insist on being there and will probably get something from the knockout because it is possible that they might bid for desirable lots. This guarantees them a modest income which I have seen estimated at between £7 and £20 a sale. Unfortunately, there are others who attend knockouts simply because they allege that they could not otherwise make ends meet. The eradication of the ring will be infinitely more difficult among the small dealers than, say, among wealthy London dealers or among the more prosperous dealers from other leading provincial cities.
I recall that back in 1956, when I was speaking during a somewhat similar Adjournment debate concerning the antiquarian booksellers' ring, I alluded to a sale of furniture which defrauded the vendor of about £40,000. This shows the scale of operations. I do not want now to dwell on recent auctions at length because police inquiries are proceeding in at least one case and it would not be right to go into great detail. But, just to show the magnitude of the operation, I remind the House of what happened at the well-known Waller sale.
The total amount of money brought in was £7,500 or thereabouts. Afterwards an independent valuer is alleged to have said to the Sunday Times—I think that this is right—that had the sale been truly competitive the vendors could have expected reasonably to receive £20,000. Look at the difference: £7,500 was what was received, £20,000 was what might have been received. So a good time was had by somebody, but certainly not by the vendor. This was the sale in which the famous Chippendale commode was sold. It went for £750. Today, it is said that its value is £10,000.
There was the knockout graphically described by the Sunday Times as having


taken place in the "hired snug" in a hotel. There, it is said, the ring had a poor day because after the first round those who dropped out received only £1 apiece. However, it is accepted I think, that the final round of some knockouts can be very exciting indeed. Three or four dealers may still confront one another; they are the experts in their subjects; and the ultimate shareout in the would-be final round can be about £1,000 apiece. Small wonder that one of those who, I believe, had been engaged in this practice described the process as "twice as exciting as poker".
The knockout is wrong; it is a criminal offence; and those who practise it are crooks, whether they like it or not, and, indeed, whether they know it or not. We have, my hon. Friends and I, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan), learned from various visits and from sometimes rather mysterious callers how prevalent it is. It is like a disease which seems to affect, indiscriminately almost, those with integrity and those with less. It may be that there are some in the racket whose probity in every other way is almost beyond praise. I think that it is true that some involved almost inherit the disease; sometimes, though, it is due to ignorance of the law; sometimes a passive lack of understanding of the social evil which the ring really perpetrates on the vendors.
What to do about it? What can be done? Today, obviously, we cannot, within the rules of order—I realise that—discuss possible changes in legislation which is being or has been considered, but what other methods are there at our disposal? I think that probably one of the strongest weapons which can be used against the ring is publicity, and I, for my part, and surely that of my hon. Friends, too—will direct the limelight on to this problem as often as we can and for as long as we can. If we forget the knockout over Christmas I can assure the House that when we come back in January it will still be at the top of our "brought forward" files. Certainly, the last of it has not been heard.
I draw attention for a moment to the position of the British Antique Dealers' Association. I do not think that it is

necessary to go in detail into the convulsions which have taken place in this body in recent weeks, but I should like to pay tribute to its new President, Mr. Hugh Agnew, whose courage and leadership in this matter have been remarkable, and pleasant to see.
Under his leadership, on 17th December, the B.A.D.A. passed two resolutions. I need hardly remind the House of what they contained, for they received great publicity. At the same time, it also arranged that all members of the Council should display in their windows a window sign, of which I have a copy here, expressing the fact that it is illegal to take part in knockout agreements, and so on. All this will, of course, do something to restore confidence in the B.A.D.A., which is a Government-recognised body, and confidence in it is, of course, necessary, especially as it operates, in after all, as what is really the art capital of the world.
It would, however, be somewhat naïve to believe that the B.A.D.A.'s actions will bring these nefarious practices to an end, because to begin with, under the 1927 Act, there must be doubt as to what really constitutes a knockout, and I have said something on those lines already. Also, we must remember that there are about 1,400 dealers outside the B.A.D.A., who remain unaffected, except perhaps by implication, by what the B.A.D.A. itself has done. They are totally unaffected.
There is also the possibility—I do not suggest that it has happened, but there is a possibility, and it cannot be going unobserved—that a member of the B.A.D.A. could, if he wished, obey the letter but not necessarily the spirit of this byelaw he could use, to take part in a ring for him, an antique dealer outside. These are all matters which must be considered.
However, the B.A.D.A. has tried to put the house in order and I pay it tribute for that. What more can it do? I diffidently suggest that it must, first, take perhaps even greater care about whom it admits to B.A.D.A. itself. It might perhaps publish in its manual a list of those who showed willingness to place the window signs which I have already mentioned in their windows. If they did that it is possible that antique dealers outside the Association in the interests of their business, might be inclined to follow suit.
Thirdly, what it might do, and I hope it will do, is to set up a small committee, or use possibly the general purposes committee, consisting of six, to come to the Government to discuss the adequacy or inadequacy of the legislation affecting this whole subject. It may well be that in the end the Government will think it right to appoint a departmental inquiry, or even a Royal Commission, to go into the whole question of auctions.
I believe that the auctioneers can help us in this matter, too, because in the main most of these rings cannot operate without the auctioneer having some knowledge of their presence. Some may, but many may not. If it came to the extreme case I suppose an auctioneer could refuse to sell a lot. One trouble is that an auctioneer has virtually no need of any qualifications at all, as I understand. For example, it is possible for him to pass the valuers examinations of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors without ever having been examined in the fine arts at all.
I wonder whether it would be possible for lists made to be freely available of persons qualified in the fine art papers. It may be that the Board of Trade could help us, could even post such a list, but I feel that if such lists were freely available they would be a safeguard to vendors in selecting their agents.
I cannot go much further into that without discussing changes in the law, but it may be that, without doing so, some of my hon. Friends could develop that theme a little.
Finally, on the remedies, I would say that the profits from these private auctions, being illegal, are presumably untaxed. Therefore, I very much hope that in this year, in particular, the Inland Revenue will scan the returns of antique dealers with very great care, because, after all, some of these people, by abusing the trade they are engaged in, succeed in robbing widows, trustees and others who need to raise money in haste. I hope that they will not be allowed to flout the Inland Revenue as well.
The B.A.D.A. has a Latin motto. I shall not, in my own interests, attempt to pronounce it, but for the benefit of my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury, I will translate it, "Art has no enemy except ignorance". I do

not know that that is always so. Certainly, the B.A.D.A. Council has purged what I would call the enemy within, and I hope that the B.A.D.A. Council will now feel that, in the interests of the trade, it should carry the war farther still to the outsiders, and try to defeat the other enemies among other antique dealers. In this, my hon. Friends and I will certainly be willing to help, and I am sure that, in so far as it lies within our power, this debate will be only a curtain raiser to things which are yet to come.

12.28 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) on raising this topic this morning and also to couple with him my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle), who did so much to start this campaign, in conjunction with the Sunday Times, and to expose, so to speak, the actions of the ring and the knockout.
I am quite certain that we have scratched the top of this anthill very severely, because the spectacle of the ants scurrying about is there for all to see. But in due course they will build the roof over the anthill again, and it is necessary to make sure that what goes on inside is correct.
I think that this is really a matter which concerns the public interest. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) is noted in the House for his interest in consumer protection, and this is surely just one more branch of consumer protection. I am hopeful that something more can be done in the future to improve the arrangements of the State to protect vendors.
I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to what the British Antique Dealers' Association has done. It has verily put its house in order, and it has made the strongest efforts to do that. It is worth mentioning that in its handbook it says:
It will be readily understood that the necessity of restricting membership to those dealers whose reputation for integrity is unchallenged was recognised by the Founders. …
I think that we have a situation in which we have slipped from that position, and the reputation for integrity must be firmly re-established.
No tribute is too high to pay to Mr. Hugh Agnew, who has led this move within the B.A.D.A. to put its house in order. I am certain that he would not mind if I quoted from "As You Like It" and compared him with Orlando as he talks to Adam:
O good old man; how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed.
Those words, though not meant to deal with knockouts, are appropriate to what Mr. Agnew has done.
What the B.A.D.A. has done is very important and useful, but we must remember that 1,400 dealers are not in that Association, and probably never will be. We must think of ways of preventing this sort of thing arising, not only by the reputation and strength of the Association, but by means of alterations in the law and in the practice in such a way that it cannot arise.
The Association agreed with our suggestion that a committee be set up which could come and discuss with my right hon. and hon. Friends ways by which we in Parliament could help. I am sure that this small committee could discuss with the Government what means are open to improve arrangements in the future. I very much hope that this committee will come forward early in the new year and make approaches both to my hon. Friends and to the Government, because I am certain that some serious thought must be given to improving arrangements for the future.
I also call for a wider inquiry by the Government. There is a Motion on the Order Paper which suggests that there should be an inquiry either departmentally, or perhaps by a Royal Commission, into the whole law and the whole practice of public auctions. I am sure that this is the next stage, and it is one which I press the Government to accept.
It is difficult to talk about the law this morning, and the law is perhaps the hardest side of the argument. I am certain that the law was contravened in the auction at Northwick Park about which we have read in the Sunday Times. I do not know whether it was the criminal law or the common law of conspiracy which was contravened, but if there are no prosecutions it must be for lack of evidence rather than because the law is

not strong enough. It may be that there will be prosecutions, and therefore it will be wrong for me to discuss this matter at length. But, if no prosecutions follow the incident, I ask the Government to let the House know the reason why it was not possible to proceed, because in this instance it is very important to see whether the law has been too weak, so that we shall know how to amend it in future.
I recognise the difficulties of demarcation. A man who is fortunate enough to have something knocked down to him at an auction at well below its value is within the law, and so are people who buy on joint account. Nobody would wish to question those two practices. At the other end of the scale, however, there is the situation where a full-scale private auction, or knockout, takes place after the goods have been bought. One is perfectly respectable, the other is intolerable. Where we draw the line of demarcation, and how we define the act which is offensive and the act which is not, is the difficulty which lies before us.
The ring thrives, and can only succeed, in the economic circumstances whereby people are prepared to sell antique articles at well below their true market value. So long as the gap between the value at which people are prepared to sell things, and the market value at which people are prepared to buy them exists, the ring can flourish.
It was the same with the black market. The true reason behind the black market was the shortage of particular goods. Supply and demand do not match one another. The same thing applies to Rachmanism. The reason there is the shortage of housing accommodation. The only way to kill mosquitoes is to drain the swamp in which they breed, and until we can drain the conditions in which the ring can flourish I shall never be satisfied that it will be possible entirely to stamp it out.
Objectionable practices differ, but they are all traced to the same basic problem, namely, that people are prepared to sell at a cheaper value than their goods are worth. The private re-auction, or knock-out, after the sale is one manifestation only. It is just as objectionable as the goods in which a group of dealers are interested being apportioned among the dealers before the sale, and them agreeing not to bid against whoever is buying


the thing allocated to him. In the same way the full force of competitive buying is not brought to bear, only it happens before, instead of after, the auction.
Then there is the problem of the parasites which my hon. Friend described so accurately, the people who can take away a pocket full of hush money which is not declared for tax purposes. This is a horrible manifestation of the things about which I have been talking. Finally, there is the tax aspect, and I think that what my hon. Friend has said about the Revenue looking at the returns for this year is of paramount importance.
I recognise that there is some difficulty here. I said that the value must be the same, or nearly the same, as that which the article will fetch on the market, but what is the value of an antique? We know so many different values, that it is confusing from the beginning. We have the probate value for death duties. We have the insurance value for insurance purposes, and now the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to introduce a new value for his capital gains tax which has got everybody guessing. A new value has to be put on articles.
Finally, there is the value of the item to the specialist collector, the person who collects Boule furniture, or Constable landscapes, and who will pay more for a good piece of furniture or a particular artist's work than the person who is a general dealer or a general collector. Thus, we have the difficulty of what is the exact value.
Nevertheless, I think that the value can be determined within reasonable limits. The mistake of something going for £750 when it is worth £10,000 is not acceptable. Nobody would expect dealers to get nearer than 10 per cent. of the real figure, but they ought not to be several hundred per cent. out, and we are forced to the conclusion that in many cases dealers know very much more about the true value than the auctioneers.
Dealers must know the value of these items, or they would not eventually pay higher prices, because they would not be able to get the money back. We are, therefore, led to the conclusion that one of the real problems is that auctioneers and valuers in this country have not brought enough expert knowledge to bear on the selling of goods at auctions. None of my right hon. Friends wants to stop

a good profit being made if a dealer is skilful enough to buy something and sell it at a much higher price.
That is all credit to him, for his own expertise. What is objectionable is the exploiting of the gap which is provided by the difference between the sale price and the true value of the article because of a prior agreement not to bid. It is just as if, on the Stock Exchange, the directors of a company agreed to buy their firm's shares before the result of the year's trading was announced, and so make a killing. This practice is almost on the same lines, and it should be stopped.
The conclusion one comes to is that it is essential that a proper reserve should be placed upon goods sold at auction sales. This means that we have to do something to register auctioneers; there ought to be licences to deal, and we ought to make it compulsory for auctioneers to be advised by expert valuers of the goods which they are selling.
Many auctioneers deal in cattle. Sometimes they have to sell the contents of a country house. Although they may know to a penny the value of a Friesian cow they cannot tell a Constable from a Picasso. Compulsory valuation would be of the greatest help in making sure that no opportunities were provided for a ring.
Another matter which worries me very much is the high cost of buying the goods back. If reserves are placed upon goods sold at an auction and they do not reach the reserve the vendor is not only left with his antiques; he also has to pay the commission which the auctioneer charges. It might be possible drastically to reduce the commission on goods which are not bought in order to encourage vendors to place higher reserves on their goods. Often they place a low reserve on goods because they are frightened of not selling them, and they are therefore prepared to take too low a valuation.
If anything can be done to encourage higher reserves it will be a move in the right direction. In France, the Government have a monopoly of auctions, and employ first-class valuers. If we reject that system it may be possible for a future Board of Trade bidder occasionally to step in and put up the price. There are over 100 hon. Members opposite in the Government who, if they find some


day that they have not quite enough to do, could go along to Christie's and bid up some Chippendale commodes. That would be a way of dealing with the ring.
I ask for a thoroughgoing survey into the law and practice of public auctions, including the sale not only of antiques, but silver, jewellery, pictures, agricultural produce and Government surplus stores. There is plenty of scope for looking into the whole law with regard to sales of Government surplus stores. I hope that in the public interest the Government will go as far as they can to meet this urgent requirement.

12.43 p.m.

Sir John Vaughan-Morgan: I want to join my colleagues in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle), who cannot be here today, for very good reasons. I do not know whether it would be in the best taste to describe him as having been the ringleader of the Parliamentary pack, but he certainly followed up quickly the investigations of the Sunday Times.
Some of the remedies proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), such as the idea of supporters of the Government going to auction sales and bidding up Chippendale furniture, will not meet with widespread approval or support his colleagues on these benches. Whatever may be the lot of those who temporarily play the rôle of Government, we would all agree about the remarkable and wonderful job of journalism which was done by the Sunday Times. We often hear complaints by the public and in Parliament about the methods of inquiry employed by the Press, but I cannot feel that there is any ground for complaint in this instance—and something tells me that there will not be any complaint to the Press Council on this occasion. If there were, it would be almost tantamount to a confession of involvement.
I hope that those concerned will accept this debate as being an earnest of the will of Parliament as a whole—there is no dividing line—that these corrupt and corrupting practices shall be brought to an end. They are not only corrupt in themselves; they are corrupting in that they bring in, on the edges of these deals,

men who otherwise have excellent reputations for probity and integrity.
We have all certainly learnt a lot about the complexity of the subject. There has been no lack of information. There has been no lack of informers. Many people have come forward and have been only too anxious to tell us their experiences and of their past participation in rings, as well as giving us information about others who have been taking part in them. We have learnt much of the seamy side of the antique trade.
It is quite clear that there is a wide spectrum in this trade, ranging from those dealers against whose reputation there is no slur whatsoever right down to the runners and parasites and near criminals. The spectrum goes from whiter than white at one end to blacker than black at the other, and there are large numbers of grey or greyish figures in between.
I, too, would pay tribute to the members of the British Antique Dealers' Association who have struggled so hard and against so many difficulties to put their house in order. This is not the first time that such attempts have been made, but previous ones have been somewhat unsuccessful.
We must be frank about it. It would not have been possible to do anything on this occasion if it had not been for the publicity which the Sunday Times articles secured. All the same, I cannot regard it as being anything but rather unhappy that at the meeting which took place, out of 500 members of the Association only 250 could be found to vote for the crucial resolution which has been the means of securing that members do not participate in these rings.
I hope that the others were merely "absent unpaired", and were not abstaining in order to register a protest against the resolution, since they were unlikely to wish to vote in public against the resolution. The Association still has before it the problem of enforcing the new conditions of membership. I hope that the Board of Trade, which uses the B.A.D.A. as an instrument for various purposes, will be able to satisfy itself that the integrity of the Association, once established, will continue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury quoted with aptness from "As You Like It", but he will


note that that quotation continued with Orlando addressing Adam and saying,
But poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree".
I hope that it will not transpire that the efforts of Mr. Hugh Agnew and his colleagues have been in vain. We have been told on good authority that the big knockout has gone; that it has been killed by the publicity. I hope that it will also prove to have been killed by the prosecutions which will follow.
The temptation is always there. After all the Act, as we know, allows a written agreement beforehand by two dealers, but the agreement between two can become an agreement between three or more quite legitimately. Before we know where we are this will be done in private and the vicious circle will recommence. It is almost impossible to draw a satisfactory legal line. If a dealer goes to a sale with a friend, it is, frankly, against human nature to believe that if they both want a certain article, one of them will not abstain from bidding. I have myself been to auctions and met a dealer whom I knew. I have asked him to bid for me, which is, I understand, of questionable legality, yet I do not think that anyone would say that I had been offending against the spirit of the Act.
Of course, we recognise that at the other end of the spectrum there is nothing whatsoever to justify the knockout, which is a private auction to which entry is limited. In my researches I thought that it would be wise to look up the meaning of the word "auction". I found that, according to the dictionary, an "auction" is "a public sale where goods are sold to the highest bidder". The important word in the dictionary definition is "public". An auction which takes place in private, obviously, is against the spirit of the Act.
For connoisseurs of the English language it may be interesting to note that the alternative word in the dictionary for "auction" is "roup", described as of Scottish and north of England origin. It is, in fact, enshrined in the Victorian Statute which deals with auctions.
We learnt from the Sunday Times article something of the elaborate mechanism involved in the knockout. I think that one of the nice touches was the sentence which said:
Tempers are frequently lost in the ring.

What also emerged was the unattractive and illegal rôle of the ring convener, who is really the villain of the piece. It is distressing to realise that very often the ring conveners have been members of the B.A.D.A., a fact which has enhanced their status among their colleagues and, ironically, has given them the necessary reputation for integrity. That is an abuse of the very intention and purpose of the Act. The convener at one of the squalid sales referred to in the Sunday Times was a Mr. Brett. I found it distressing to read in the Financial Times a report of the Association's debate, in which it was stated:
Mr. C. A. Brett, one of the dealers involved in the commode transactions given wide publicity last month, stated that he had bought the most expensive legal advice available and added: 'They assure me that I have never taken part in an illegal knock-out'.
I hope that that will be proved wrong by the Director of Public Prosecutions. We may legitimately challenge Mr. Brett to admit that he has in fact acted against the spirit of the law if not the letter. I am sure that that cannot be denied. This remark goes to prove that the Act is a weak Measure which lends itself an infringement. The intention, of course, was an excellent one, to protect the vendor from being exploited. It would be out of order to suggest new legislation and, in any case, 1 do not think that we are really yet ready for new legislation. 1 do not think that the public, or the Government so far as they have been concerned, realise how widespread has become this practice.
I have, therefore, tabled a Question to the Prime Minister, which will be put to the right hon. Gentleman when we return from the Christmas Recess, asking for a Royal Commission to look into the law and procedure relating to the law and practice of auctions. I have done this, not as a means of procrastination, far from it, but because we need more knowledge, in view of the widespread ramifications of these malpractices which we now know to be going on.

12.56 p.m.

Mr. Richard Sharples: I do not wish to take up too much of the time of the House because I know that the Joint Under-Secretary of State is anxious to reply to the debate. I should like, first, to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for


Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) and other hon. Members on this side of the House for raising this most important subject. I should also like to say how much we appreciate the work which has been done by the British Antique Dealers' Association, and particularly by Mr. Hugh Agnew, to put its house in order.
One of the real difficulties about this problem is that of collecting evidence in order to bring prosecutions. These matters are discussed behind closed doors among a tight circle of people. There is very real difficulty facing the police in their endeavours to obtain evidence upon which they might bring prosecutions. I believe this to be one of the main problems facing the authorities in their endeavours to deal effectively with this matter.
I hope that we shall hear from the Joint Under-Secretary what steps are being taken to make more effective the means whereby prosecutions may be brought, and the necessary evidence obtained. In the event, the protection for the vendor which we wish to see must lie in the integrity of the auctioneer. It is usual for a person with no experience, who wishes to sell goods, to go to an auctioneer for advice. It is for the auctioneer to ensure that the auction for which he is responsible is conducted in accordance with the best practices of his profession.
I wish to reinforce very strongly the plea, made by hon. Members who have taken part in the debate, for a full-scale inquiry into the whole practice of auctions. I hope that we shall hear something about that from the Joint Under-Secretary.

12.59 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Thomas): I join with the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples) and others in paying a tribute to the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) not only for raising this matter, but for the well-informed and able manner in which he did so. Along with the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley)—I hope that the right hon. Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan) will not mind the difference in my pronoun-

ciation of Cirencester, as I say it in the Welsh way—the hon. Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle)—whom we all regret is not present today—and the right hon. Member for Reigate, he has been a crusader on this disturbing question.
The hon. Member for Londonderry, particularly, took positive action over the antiquarian booksellers' ring some time ago. I know that he was responsible for that branch of this profession endeavouring to put its house in order.
This is not an unimportant debate. Britain is recognised as a centre of the fine arts world, and one of the main reasons for this is the reputation of our dealers for integrity. Sales of works of art and antiques for foreign buyers run into millions of pounds and make an important contribution to the tourist trade. It is very much in our national interest that confidence in this market should be maintained. I believe, also, that it is in our interest that the general standard of probity that we expect in private enterprise should be reflected here, as in other places.
The hon. Member for Londonderry and other hon. Members who have taken part in this debate have rendered a public service by the way in which they have encouraged the British Antique Dealers' Association to take drastic action to outlaw the activities of the rings among their members. We are dealing with dishonourable people. It is no good talking about their being people of unblemished character; if they are prepared to resort to this dishonesty, they must face up to the fact that they are dishonest people, behaving dishonourably, and willing to cheat others of what belongs to them. I have no doubt that a good many of these people would be appalled if they thought that the words I have just spoken could be applied to them.
We also owe a debt to the members of the Press for the way in which they have acted as watchdogs in the public interest in this matter. In particular, I should like to pay tribute to the Sunday Times, which focused attention on the antique dealers' rings in an article on 8th November—an article has been referred to, I think, by everyone who has taken part in the debate except the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam. This has demonstrated, once again, the value of a free Press


determined to expose the sort of rings with which we have been dealing.
The fact that there have been no prosecutions under the 1927 Act in the last 10 years is explained, as has been rightly said, by the extraordinary difficulty of obtaining evidence. Normally, the only witnesses to breaches of the 1927 Act are the offenders themselves, and they are understandably very reticent on the subject. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General has already told the House that police inquiries are under way into alleged irregularities in the Gloucestershire sale last September. These inquiries are bound to take a considerable time. I do not underestimate the difficulties of the police in this regard, and we must be content to await the result of the inquiries.
A new factor has been the decision of the British Antique Dealers' Association to establish new rules to combat the rings. At a meeting of the Association on 17th December, 262 members voted in favour of a new byelaw that it shall be a condition of membership that a dealer will not take part in any illegal auction knockout. The right hon. Member for Reigate will be comforted to know that nobody voted against the new byelaw, but there were several abstentions. There were 245 members of the Association who voted for the requirement that members should sign a declaration that they have read the rules, including the new one, that they have understood them, and that they will abide by them. Fourteen members voted against this requirement, and I understand that several members abstained.
I join with hon. Members opposite in expressing pleasure that Commander Hugh Agnew has accepted the presidency of the Association. He is Chairman of the Society of London Art Dealers. He is held in the highest possible respect by all members of the profession, and I believe that he is rendering a signal service to his own colleagues and to the public as a whole by undertaking the difficult task he has now accepted. His new term of office will run until May, and he is said to be looking on the coming five months as a time of reconstruction in an attempt to regain public confidence and trust.
This debate, and the Press publicity that has preceded it, is welcomed as a

means of making the public aware of what is going on. The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury complained that people are prepared to sell their goods at below their market value. I believe that the more people with goods to sell protect their interests by having the goods valued and by putting a reserve price on them the less chances the rings have of operating successfully. I hope that the debate will serve to prompt people who are aware of these illegal practices to come forward, so as to enable evidence to be procured to make possible prosecutions under the Act.
There is nothing wrong with the 1927 Act that I can see—any more than there is with the Ten Commandments. I would not, of course, venture to say that there was anything wrong with the Ten Commandments, difficult as they are to observe. The 1927 Act is not difficult to observe, but apparently it is not difficult, either, to defeat, because the people who are involved and who would, if caught, be likely to go to gaol or be fined very heavily are not likely themselves to be the witnesses. In the one prosecution that has taken place, the people confessed that they had taken a part. The evidence was there. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Board of Trade, have both considered the question, and we find it very difficult indeed to see how the law should be amended.
The hon. Member for Londonderry hoped that the Inland Revenue would scan the returns of these dealers with special care. My impression is that the Inland Revenue scans everyone's returns with special care. If the hon. Member does not get that feeling, he is a lucky man. I certainly have it about my own returns. The Inland Revenue will, of course, take note of what the hon. Gentleman has said but, with all the good will in the world towards his proposals, I can hold out no immediate promise of a change in the law.
A Royal Commission to inquire into auction rings is not thought likely to take us much further. The method of the operation of the rings is well known—the hon. Member for Londonderry explained in great detail how they worked, and that is known to us, too—

Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: We were not asking for an inquiry or Royal Commission into the operation of rings, but into the law and practice of auctions and, as a cognate subject, professional valuations.

Mr. Thomas: I shall have something to say on that to the right hon. Gentleman. Specific allegations that offences have been committed are being investigated by the police on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
As to a complete survey of the whole of auction law, when the hon. Member came to see me on 16th December I undertook that we would have conversations between the Home Office and the Board of Trade to see whether such a survey could usefully be undertaken and what improvements we could put into effect. Those consultations are now under way. I assure hon. Members that we take this matter seriously and that we are as anxious as they are to restore the good name of the British Antique Dealers' Association and also to achieve and maintain higher standards.
Reference has been made to the fact that B.A.D.A. proposes to set up a small committee to consider amendment of the law. The Home Office will be very willing to examine any suggestions which the Association can bring forward. The other matters which have been raised by hon. Members this morning will be given serious consideration by the departments concerned.
I should like, in conclusion, to express from this Box the dismay that we feel that men who have had a great and enviable reputation should be thought to have been lending themselves to these unfortunate practices in the sale of antiques at auctions. We in this country rely on our good name and integrity in business and commerce as much as we do on the ability of our people and I am glad to know that the industry itself is seeking to put its house in order.
The Government will do their utmost to strengthen the hands of those who are resolved to clean up this whole business.

TRANSPORT, WEST DURHAM

1.12 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Armstrong: I should like to say how grateful I am for this opportunity to raise a vital issue in my constituency and neighbouring constituencies in the western part of County Durham. I believe that the provision of improved roads and communications in that area is fundamental to the redevelopment and revitalisation of West Durham which is so important in these post-war days.
One of the great problems of those villages and towns which were involved in the forefront of the Industrial Revolution has been the closing of the pits, particularly the uneconomic, old-fashioned pits that we have in abundance in West Durham. They were the basic supply of employment. Over 90 per cent. of the boys in the colliery village where I was brought up went straight to the pit. Now that those pits have closed, we find ourselves faced with the great need to change our outlook, to change our attitude and, indeed, to achieve a great change in our environment. The provision of improved roads and communications is obviously where we must begin.
Most of my constituency consists of pit villages and rather larger towns. In the extreme west of the county, there are beautiful dales which are served by roads that were constructed for the horse and buggy age. Very little has been done to bring them up to a standard to meet the requirements of modern traffic.
Redevelopment in West Durham has, unfortunately, always been piecemeal, short-term and more concerned with social welfare and social relief than changing the pattern of life in that area so that the undoubted resources which we have and the untapped potential may be used for the general well-being and prosperity of the whole nation. We have, frankly, reached the stage where major changes must take place.
We realise that work cannot be provided in every colliery village that once encircled the local pit. There are some places where people must be, and are, prepared to travel. Once we talk about bringing in new industries and men and women having to travel to work, we are again confronted with the problem of


old-fashioned roads, obsolete communications and the need for massive public investment. Obviously, people in my area and in the whole of the west of Durham will do much more travelling to and from their daily work. That travel must be made much more convenient than it is today.
The whole area of West Durham—and this is, perhaps, why I am stressing the problem today—has been much influenced and greatly depressed by the Report, published in November, 1963,
The North East, A programme for regional development and growth, Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development by Command of Her Majesty, November 1963.
Whilst that Report brought new hope to certain parts of the North-East, it laid down, whether deliberately or not, a cruel distinction between that part of Durham County which lies east of the Great North Road, A1, and that part which I am talking about today, the west of Durham, lying west of the Great North Road.
To give a pertinent example from the Report, it acknowledges after a detailed inquiry of the needs of the North-East that there must be an improved—indeed, the Report states "a massive"—road programme. It goes on to indicate that between 1964 and 1969 expenditure on roads in the North-East would rise from £54 million to £85 million. This is a considerable amount of money and is rather more than the share to which we are entitled on a population basis. The terrible fact concerning West Durham is that although the Report lists 11 major schemes, not one of them is west of the Great North Road. They are all either on the Great North Road or to the east, between the Great North Road and the coast.
It is natural that local authorities, trade unions, employers and prospective employers and industrialists whom we are anxious to attract, when they look at the Plan for the North-East and when they look at the prospects, regard the area, as many people now living in West Durham regard it, as being almost written-off by the people in Whitehall.
The Darlington by-pass motorway is nearing the final stages of construction. We in West Durham, no less than those

in the Darlington area and to the east, welcome this innovation. There is direct communication between the new motorway and the A.68, which is a Class 1 road running right through West Durham. It leaves the A.1 and then goes through West Auckland, Witton-le-Wear, Tow Law and on through Castleside to Corbridge.
In the opinion of the surveyor to the Durham County Council, Mr. Cotton—I want to acknowledge the great help he has been to me in considering West Durham's roads and communications needs—there is no doubt that when the by-pass motorway is completed it will lead to a great increase in the amount of traffic using the A.68. I commend it to the House. It is a very beautiful road and a very favourable alternative to the route to bonnie Scotland. Rather than go through Darlington and up through Neville's Cross and Newcastle, those from the South should take this good road through this wonderful country which leads to Tow Law and on to Scotland.
Over a period of several years the Durham County Council has been progressively widening and improving the straight stretches of the A.68, using maintenance and minor improvement funds. Anybody who travels in this area, as I do frequently, knows that there are bottlenecks which involve major projects and the expenditure of a great deal of money. They are bottlenecks which can be removed only by special major improvement procedure, requiring Ministry grants. The Durham County Council is a good authority as far as roads are concerned. It is most anxious to get on with this major work. The difficulty is that because of the Plan, or the Report, or the White Paper—call it what you will; it is known locally as "The Hailsham Plan"—this involves the County Council in expenditure for the great part east of the North Road. We feel that West Durham is being neglected.
I want to mention one of the most dangerous bottlenecks that I know in the whole country. It is on the A.68 at the entrance to a very lovely village called Witton-le-Wear. It is a beautiful village, but the access to it is a nightmare. A motorist leaving West Auckland and coming to Witton-le-Wear has to cross the river by means of a hump back bridge where it is impossible from either side


to see the traffic approaching from the opposite direction. Many times in my own journeys I have got on to the bridge. It is not wide enough for two vehicles to pass, so one vehicle has to give way. Being a very modest man, it has usually been me who has given way. I have had to reverse my car so that the other car could come on. Hon. Members can imagine the confusion, and indeed the danger to pedestrians crossing the bridge, which occurs when buses meet there.
One hundred yards further on there is a very steep hill known locally as Clemmy Bank. At the top of this hill, which is one in seven, there is a T-junction which is one of the most dangerous junctions that I know. It is a beautiful village. It is very popular at weekends for private motorists. Now, because of something which I will mention later, it is very much used by heavy lorries. I think my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that the only answer is a major project involving a by-pass which will enable the River Wear to be traversed by a new bridge, then over the Weardale Railway to join the road north of Witton-le-Wear. This is a tremendous project. I know that negotiations have been going on. The Durham County Council is well aware of the need and is anxious to proceed, but it is a very costly matter.
Leaving Witton-le-Wear the motorist comes to Fir Tree, where there is another T-junction which is dangerous. Then the motorist comes to Harperley Crossroads where the main road from Crook to Wolsingham, which is being increasingly used in these days, crosses the A.68. Again a major project is required here. Alterations have taken place further up at Helm Park. Then the motorist comes to Tow Law. There is no doubt that considerable expense will be involved, because this is a vital link for the whole of West Durham with that major motorway which runs from the North-East to London. Urgent action is required if we are to redevelop and revitalise our life in West Durham.
I have mentioned Weardale. I think, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that you are well aware of the very great attractions in Weardale. It is a very lovely place. I went to the grammar school there. I always visit Wolsingham and Stanhope with great pleasure. Unfortunately, it is

now becoming very popular, and the roads are completely inadequate for the traffic, even at present. At Eastgate, which is just west of Stanhope, a new cement works has just been constructed. This is a £3 million project. It is a remarkable development which to a large extent has solved the unemployment problem in the dales. I am glad that men who have been unemployed, having been made redundant in the pits in the west part of Durham—Crook, Willington and Stanley—are now travelling to their daily work at the cement works. This involves more traffic because the passenger services have been withdrawn in the area.
I am told that, if the finished product when the works become fully operational were to be channeled by road on to the Great North Road via A.68, a lorry would be leaving those works every six minutes. I am led to believe—I stress the importance of this, in case my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary can do anything about this—that most of the freight will go by rail. If ever there was a clear economic and social case for traffic going by rail, it is this. These roads are inadequate for ordinary private cars, let alone the big lorries that would be involved in carrying the loads of cement.
Even if all the freight goes by rail, it is obvious that the presence of this big cement works will bring more traffic to and from that site. The 10 miles which separate Harperley Gate where the A.68 comes across from the cement works is a country road. It is a second-class road, the B.6293. At no place in those 10 miles is it safe for one vehicle to overtake another. If one overtakes through frustration, impatience or urgency, one takes one's life in one's hands. There is no doubt at all that a complete major upheaval is required in the area. New roads are required if they are to be adequate for the traffic which is likely to need them in the next few years.
I think that I have made the case on roads for massive public investment in that area of West Durham if we are to provide the sort of environment which makes for a vigorous community so that men and women can make their full contribution to society.
The White Paper proposals have naturally guided the county council in


its policy for the next five years. This is a forward looking council and it has made its plans on the basis of the Report. So the east of the county will naturally take up the bulk of additional road expenditure. In West Durham during the last six weeks we have had a new lift of spirit. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade by a single act reversed the policy which had been pursued because of this Report and gave the area new hope. When I went there the weekend following, there was obviously a lift of spirit. The Guardian reported:
N-E plan starts new phase.
The inclusion of the west Durham towns of Crook and Consett in the list of places to receive advance factories marks the start of a new phase in development policy in the North-east.
I am sorry to say that the last paragraph of that article is relevant to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. It says:
What is not understood is the Minister of Transport s consent to the closing of the Bishop Auckland to Crook line for passenger services just over a month before the factory project was announced by Mr. Jay.
I understood it, and most of my constituents understand it, because that decision was made by the previous Administration 10 or 12 days before my right hon. Friend and the Parliamentary Secretary took up their positions—and that was the reason.
The area from Crook to Bishop Auckland has been served by passenger lines, and, of course, there have been also regular bus services from Crook to Bishop Auckland. Last Saturday, I took the opportunity again—I have done it thousands of times but I did it purposely on Saturday so that I could speak with more authority today—to go by car from Crook to Bishop Auckland. It was a nightmare. One goes to Howden-le-Wear and then to High Grange—roads which are completely inadequate—and then there is the biggest bottleneck of all. We have, just entering Bishop Auckland, something which we all know as Newton Cap, a very steep descent at one side from the Toronto end of one-in-seven to one-in-eight with dangerous bends in the descent, and then we come after 60 or 70 yards to a bridge where there must be single line traffic—it is impossible for two vehicles to pass. Immediately on

the other side of the bridge entering Bishop Auckland there is again a steep hill of one-in-seven to one-in-eight. If the rail services are to be discontinued and the passenger services are to be withdrawn then a completely new road must be constructed. It would be the biggest viaduct, certainly in the north of England and one of the biggest in the country. It would be a very expensive project indeed.
Two years ago Newton Cap was out of commission altogether during the frost and snow and that happens quite frequently. The journey of 18 miles from Darlington to Crook by rail lasts 38 minutes. To do that journey by bus services, going through the various villages and so on, takes twice as long—and I am reinforced by the evidence of the T.U.C.C. scheme.
The T.U.C.C. says:
The Committee gave very careful consideration to the representation put forward and after taking into account the exising and proposed alternative services, they reached the conclusion that the withdrawal of the train service would result in serious hardship to the large body of passengers who use the train to travel to and from their daily work. The operation of additional bus services would not eradicate the hardship.
No wonder the T.U.C.C. came to that conclusion. Anyone who has travelled on that road from Crook to Bishop Auckland is bound to reinforce it. If the conditions for closure—because I know that the Minister approved this just before the election—could be varied in any way and if he could keep this line open until a review has taken place, because the alternative bus services proposed are not adequate, we should be happy to await the result of a regional review. To put extra traffic on the Crook-Bishop Auckland road as it is now constituted would, indeed, be madness in the extreme.
I do not represent a depressed and dying area by any means. This is a vital and vigorous community in West Durham anxious to play its part—we played an honourable part in the provision of coal, the basic necessity, for the great Industrial Revolution which took place in our country—and we believe that the area has a future. We have been greatly reinforced in this belief and heartened by the actions of the Government; first, by the President of the Board of Trade in regard to


the new advance factory. That will not solve all our problems, but it is an indication that we are on the map again.
There was a notable broadcast by my right hon. Friend last Friday night, in which again he drew attention to the needs of West Durham. Now I am asking the Parliamentary Secretary to lend his weight and influence to providing improved roads and communications in this area, because I believe that this is a fundamental provision which will enable us to go from strength to strength and play our part in the national prosperity.

1.38 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler): I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Armstrong) with the utmost sympathy. I know that since he has been elected he has been very active and energetic on behalf of his constituents on these matters. I have some personal knowledge and experience of mining districts which in the past have suffered decline, depression and neglect. I lived in the days before the Second World War in just such an area. Therefore, I feel real sympathy with the matters to which my hon. Friend has referred, and I am inspired by the fact that he is able to say in the very early days of the Government's administration that sparks of new hope have already been created as the result of the plans that are emanating from the Government.
I have had the benefit, not only of listening to my hon. Friend, but also of reading correspondence between him and one of my colleagues and my right hon. Friend the Minister. I should like to set out, although my hon. Friend will be well acquainted with all these facts, the situation that we have inherited. First, may I refer to the railway position, in particular the Crook-Bishop Auckland line. My hon. Friend said quite rightly, and I want to make this crystal clear, that the consent to the closure of the passenger services on the Crook-Bishop Auckland line was given on 11th September. Unfortunately, we had no power to rescind this decision. The matter was covered, of course, by the statement of my right hon. Friend on 4th November about our attitude towards rail closures, and the

British Railways Board has the power now to withdraw the passenger services on this line. It also has the duty of making alternative arrangements. I would say to my hon. Friend that, as the Minister said on 4th November, although he has no power to revoke a consent given by his predecessor, he has the power to vary the conditions which have been attached.
If concrete evidence is produced to show the inadequacy of the alternative arrangements, whether they have been brought into force or whether they are proposed, we shall certainly examine this evidence sympathetically. If my hon. Friend or the local authorities and bodies of citizens whom he represents have concrete proposals to put before us to try to make more adequate the transport arrangements following the closure of passenger services, I can assure my hon. Friend that these will be given very serious and immediate consideration.
At the same time, I should make clear that the track will be retained under the terms explained by my right hon. Friend on 4th November and, therefore, when the regional planning boards and councils have done their job—to which I shall make some further reference in a moment—if they consider that passenger services should be restored in relation to the future economic development of the area, that will be made possible by the fact that my right hon. Friend has asked the Railways Board to retain the track.
I turn to the road situation, which was the main burden of my hon. Friend's speech. The main towns in West Durham are Consett, Stanley, Bishop Auckland, Crook and Willington, each with a population of between 25,000 and 45,000. The road system linking these towns with the A.1 north-south trunk road through the country is a network of classified roads for which the Durham County Council is the highway authority. It is quite a complicated network. Some of the more important routes with which, of course, my hon. Friend will be well acquainted are the A.692 linking Consett with Tyneside, the A.693 linking Consett and Stanley with Chester-le-Street, the A.691 linking Consett with Durham City, the A.690 linking Crook and Willington with Chester-le-Street, the A.6074 linking Bishop Auckland with Durham City, and the A.68 and the


A.6072 roads which link all these towns with Darlington and the South.
Most of these roads carry 3,000 to 5,000 vehicles a day, though the Bishop Auckland-Durham City route carries nearly 9,000 vehicles a day, according to our latest information. But it is perfectly true that traffic is increasing here on this network, as it is everywhere else. In fact, the improvements now being carried out to the A.1, especially the new Darlington bypass, will undoubtedly give an added stimulus to the traffic flow in these areas.
Although quite rightly my hon. Friend is not satisfied, these classified roads in West Durham have not been neglected. Some work has been done on them. In fact, in the last six years, according to my researches, more than £500,000 have been spent on improvement schemes on the main classified roads in West Durham.
But we admit straight away that we have inherited some black spots, some very bad places to which my hon. Friend alluded. He referred to the bottleneck on the A.68 at Witton-le-Wear about which he asked a Question on 25th November. We understand that the Durham County Council has under consideration a major improvement here involving a new bridge over the River Wear and over the Weardale Railway. This scheme, as he implied, would be an ambitious scheme; we reckon it would cost in the region of £500,000. But this is something which we shall undoubtedly have to consider as we shall also have to consider improvement schemes at another spot which he mentioned, the Harperley crossroads, a bad spot on the A.68, and at Fir Tree. We understand that the county council has under consideration two improvement schemes costing about £50,000 each, although these are not yet programmed.
My hon. Friend also referred to the road at Weardale and the new cement factory at Eastgate, 10 miles to the west of Crook. This road, we admit, is seriously sub-standard although the county council which, as he said, has been an energetic authority in this respect has done something to get rid of the worst difficulties here. For example, it has recently completed an improvement at Bradley Bridge and a number of other improvements are

planned at Stanhope and the bridge to the west of Stanhope, schemes which together will cost well over £100,000. But it is quite clear that further modernisation will be required.
My hon. Friend also referred to the use for freight of the Weardale Railway. We certainly hope that something will be done in this respect because we want the under-used railways to be used to a greater extent to relieve congestion on the roads. This is a matter between the cement company and the Railways Board, but if there is anything we can possibly do to facilitate agreement to get better use of the freight service on the railway we shall certainly endeavour to do so.
That is the situation that we have inherited and we agree that many new schemes will be required to bring the West Durham road network up to standard. The fact is that at the moment we have already inherited a considerable road programme which pre-empts the money available. I am afraid that at the moment I have to make the same sort of reply to my hon. Friend that I had to make the other night to some hon. Members who pleaded the case for the roads in the South-West—namely, that we have more claims for expenditure on highways programmes than we can possibly handle or meet at the moment, and the extension of the roads programme and an increase in expenditure on the roads will depend on the success of our economic plans in creating a higher rate of economic growth in the country and, therefore, providing more resources.
As my hon. Friend said, because of the agitation in the North-East and the serious situation that had developed there, a large additional programme amounting to £50 million worth of schemes was introduced by the last Government, in addition to the new Darlington bypass and the Durham motorway, and we shall certainly continue with that programme. But my hon. Friend quite rightly pointed out that to a large extent this is east of the A.1; this is brought out very clearly on the map in the last publication of "Roads in England and Wales". Therefore, the programme is only of indirect benefit to his constituents.
At the moment 14 per cent. of total public service investment is going on the national road programme, compared with about 3 per cent. nine years ago, and we are already committed to public investment on the main roads of England and Wales over the next five years to the tune of £1,000 million. The inclusion of the sort of additional items about which my hon. Friend is concerned will depend very largely on the achievement of a higher rate of economic growth.
Finally, to answer the last part of what my hon. Friend said, the Government are establishing regional planning boards and regional planning councils. One of the jobs of these regional organisations will be to survey the situation which we have inherited in relation to future economic and population trends and to the need to revive and stimulate development in certain areas. Among other things, they will have a responsibility for advising my right hon. Friend and myself on transport planning in relation to the Government's other plans to bring about a better distribution of industry and population and a better community life for the people.
We therefore do not take it that this factual situation which I have described is somethinig absolutely hard and fast. It is the Government's intention that the regional planning machinery shall work, and as rapidly as possible, and that it should enable us to be advised both on the future of the railways and on the future road programme. It will give us advice which will enable us to have a clearer sight of the priorities and to bring about the best possible balance of investment in the roads and in the transport network generally for the benefit of the people.

DOCKS (CONGESTION)

1.51 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: I wish to raise this afternoon the difficulties which are being experienced by our exporters and particularly in my case, as is natural, exporters from the great industrial areas of the West Midlands, as a result of present conditions in the docks. Before doing so, I should like to mention a danger which I apprehend and which I think all of us in the House would want to avoid.
There is so much concentration of attention upon our export problems at present and, naturally, upon the difficulties of our exporters and our desire that they should be more successful that there is a danger that we might talk ourselves down in the estimation of the world. There is a danger that we may injure the credit and reputation of our exporters in the world. I am sure that that is something which we all want to avoid.
There is also the danger of depressing the morale of firms engaged in the export effort. I thought that the Prime Minister was culpable in this respect last week when he referred to our manufacturers as being slothful. It is, therefore, useful to remind ourselves that last year we exported over £4,000 million worth of goods, an increase of 8 per cent. over the previous year, and that in the first nine months of the present year exports are up by 4 per cent. on what they were last year. In passing, I might add that we export per head more than twice as much as do the Japanese.
We are, therefore, taking for granted the colossal and successful export efforts of our nation. We want to do better, of course, and there is nobody who wants to do better more than the actual exporters themselves. I therefore feel that we want the message to go out from the House today that we appreciate the tremendous practical job that is being done by British exporters. The purpose of the debate, as I see it, is to help remove some of the difficulties which at present stop our exporters from developing their full forward thrust.
Having said that, I think it would be of most service to the House if I became very concrete and definite in giving a certain number of examples of the difficulties which Midlands exporters have experienced in recent weeks. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Transport, whom I am glad to see present, will appreciate that I shall not mention the names of the manufacturers, but if he wishes I can always furnish them to him.
A leading manufacturer of metal tubing instances a case of two lorry loads for London Docks being delayed three days and the carrier asking for demurrage. This company had 40 tons for the Royal Albert Docks but found it impossible


to obtain private carriers to handle it because of the delay. A shipment for Israel was missed entirely. In another case, scheduled loading dates were put back without proper notification and as a result consignments in good time for the original dates were not accepted and additional journeys had to be made.
One of the greatest manufacturers in the country reports that his export business has been seriously disrupted by dock delays. He complains of split shipments and has doubts about being able to meet letters of credit in time. The company instances 30 tons consigned to Hong Kong of which 10 tons were despatched on the designated vessel and the remaining 20 tons on two other vessels. Where previously ten days' delay was anticipated, 30 days now appear to be regarded as normal. It is difficult to know whether shipping can be effected within the time stipulated in letters of credit. Approximately 60 per cent. of the company's exports are forwarded to the ports by rail and the company finds that London Docks are by far the worst.
I take the instance of a leading merchant shipping to West Africa. Split shipments are creating tremendous problems of documentation. These have become so great that documents are sometimes not reaching the destination before the goods, and this means further delay at Customs at the destination.
A well-known company reports that at the beginning of last week 135 cases of its goods were returned because the lorry driver was told that he might have to wait until Saturday. Some goods have to be sent two and three times to the port before they can be accepted. Shipments have been split. In other cases where import licences were involved the company has found it necessary to withhold shipments until new letters of credit have been obtained. The company particularly mentions Middle East destinations and destinations with a large Chinese population where annual festivals are due to take place early in the New Year and where it is important for shipments to arrive in good time.
I have a large number of examples, but I shall mention only two others. A big haulage firm in Smethwick, which acts for several large Midlands customers, reports that a quantity of chocolate for loading

on to the "Egyptian Princess" on 18th December was not accepted because the closing date for the boat was advanced by one day. A further fortnight will elapse before space can be booked on another steamer and the goods will be returned in the meantime for replacement owing to their perishable nature.
Three consignments from another manufacturer despatched on 10th September from the West Midlands for the "Port Invercargill" at the Royal Albert Docks could not be accepted on the following day. The vehicle was also turned back on 16th September and the goods were not actually shipped until 6th October on the "Port Chalmers". Three journeys were, therefore, made from the West Midlands in this instance.
I do not think that I need weary the House with further concrete examples, of which I have a great many, but I should like to quote from Mr. Laurence Styles, Chairman of the West Midlands Institute of Export, because I think that his comment sums up the position. I have been in touch with him, in addition to the manufacturers I have mentioned. He says:
the long-term answer to the problem is greater mechanisation, and the improvement of dock facilities. But the short-term answer was for the Government to come to grips with the dockers and sort out their working conditions and pay … All we ask—
on behalf of the West Midlands exporters—
is that, if there is an advertised ship, we should be able to send cargo to her with the reasonable certainty that it will be shipped".
The industrial correspondent of The Times reported on 10th December:
The Export Council for Europe last night criticised the working of British ports in terms which, as blunt comment, have few recent parallels among statements from quasi-official bodies.
Mr. Glen, the Chairman of the Council, commented:
We believe this is now the greatest single threat to our export position … We are not convinced that its true gravity is realised.
It appealed to the Government, calling for urgent action—which is what we are doing this afternoon.
It will probably be agreed on all sides of the House that this occasion is not one on which to consider the long-term project. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples), with


characteristic energy and vision, set up the Rochdale Committee, and then produced his Harbours Bill, which was received most warmly on all sides of the House, including by the Labour Party, and he then started energetic action to get on with the work. I hope that the present Government are continuing with it.
However, as Mr. Styles rightly says, we are faced today, and so are our exporters, with the short-term problems, and, without going into a great deal of detail, I would say from my studies of the matter that the short-term problems are strictly practical ones, such as, for example, smoothing the flow of vehicles to the port, clearing the transit sheds and working up as fast as possible from the ten-hour working day, which I am informed is the normal working day in the Port of London, to the 24-hour day, which is the working day in Rotterdam.
I want to make clear to the House that it is not my purpose to point an accusing finger at the dockers. Having as Minister of Fuel had such long experience in handling the labour problems of the mines, I feel instinctively that the dockers also have problems which derive from the long past which we ought to bear in mind sympathetically. This does not mean that the dockers have not got a vital contribution to make to the solution of our problem, and I think that the dockers themselves would agree with this point of view. They would surely agree if given the right leadership, and I suggest that in present circumstances that leadership must come from the Government. The Government have recognised this in principle, but I suggest that they have acted most inadequately. It is not enough to set up a committee and put in the chair an eminent and able official, whom I myself have known for many years and whose ability I appreciate. Officials themselves are the first to recognise the limitations of such a mode of work.
Last week the Prime Minister was appealing to the instinct and the spirit of Dunkirk. Since at this period of the year I want to avoid any overweening observations, I merely say that if the Prime Minister aspires to wear the mantle of Sir Winston Churchill he must make himself worthy of it. The problems of

the docks are exactly the kind of practical problem in respect of which I as a junior member of Sir Winston Churchill's Administration in the war was accustomed to feel the lash of his driving power in insisting that they must be solved. It is exactly the situation where "Action this day" was the motto on which Sir Winston Churchill insisted. If the Prime Minister is to talk about the Dunkirk spirit, it is not right that he should talk about it for other people without setting an example in his own Administration of the kind of determination and energy which was shown on that occasion.
The present Government are peculiarly well suited to invoke this kind of unconventional and decisive administration in such a matter. I well realise that the right hon. Gentleman opposite may be in a somewhat difficult situation. He may take the narrow position that he is the Minister of Transport and that many of these problems are handled by other Departments, but, of course, he is speaking on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, and the Government contain not only other Ministers such as the Minister of Labour, who have great responsibility, but also Mr. Frank Cousins. I should have thought that the Prime Minister, when invoking the Dunkirk spirit, would have got over the conventional distribution of responsibilities between Departments and in this very critical situation, as recognised even by quasi-official bodies, would have instituted some real driving directive within the Government in which I should have thought Mr. Frank Cousins would be well able and well qualified to play a leading part. It is upon that basis that I introduce this subject to the House.

2.7 p.m.

Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith: I am glad of the opportunity to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd). I am more particularly concerned with the London Docks. There is one issue upon which hon. Members on all sides are united, and that is the absolute necessity to increase our exports and to export in full measure if we are to find the wherewithal to pay for the food and raw materials that we must have if our people are to be properly nourished and fed.
There are differing views about exports. Some people have described them as fun. Some think they are just sheer hell. We are at least united in the conviction that they are vital. It is a sad fact that, though we have some tens of thousands of manufacturing organisations in this country, three-quarters of our exports come from 200 great manufacturing and exporting companies. Those firms are the Brigade of Guards and the shock troops which are always in the front line of our export drive, and they are worthy of our consideration.
There is in my constituency a small, compact industrial area, and I was very proud when it was noted in the export campaign run by the former President of the Board of Trade, small though it is in comparison with the great industrial cities, because it had an outstanding export record. It is because of the complaints that I have received from many of the companies—I will give the right hon. Gentleman a few of the many examples which have come to me—that I urge upon him the great importance of ensuring that something is done to expedite the export of goods vital to our economy.
All over the world executives are going out winning orders in face of the fiercest ever competition. They plan and adapt their output production lines to meet orders which represent the special needs of foreign customers. Their staffs work overtime to meet the delivery date. Then it all passes from their control. They are then at the mercy of the shippers and the docks and all too often the goodwill they have built up can vanish overnight if one order fails to arrive in time.
Of course, this is particularly so at a time when it is essential to get orders for the Christmas trade out during the early months of the autumn, particularly for great countries like Australia and America where, having docked, the goods have to be spread and distributed throughout enormous continents. Already many firms in my constituency are receiving irate complaints from people who have not received in time the goods they ordered for the Christmas trade.
I would say that a dozen of my local firms are wholly export-minded and are geared to meet the challenge of exports

in these competitive days. For example, the largest employer in my constituency makes radio, television and electronic equipment and exports to 77 different countries. As common form, the firm notifies the customer of the ship on which the cargo is booked. The firm reports that in recent months it has repeatedly had consignments turned back three days running. In order to keep its bond with its overseas buyers—and it won some of these valuable customers in fierce competition with other countries, particularly Japan—it has transported the goods to East Coast English ports and then transshipped them at Rotterdam—a process which doubles the freight costs.
Another firm specialises in paper-making exports and it, too, has had its lorries turned back from the docks four days running and has often been unable to ship on the vessel on which the goods were to have been shipped and which has often sailed with light cargo. These firms point out the immense extra cost of being held up for days at the docks, with the freezing of the manpower that should be engaged on other lorry loads.
Yet another firm exports to 50 countries. I know what a valuable exporter this firm is, since I asked it for a list of the countries to which it exports. It provides very important components for a subsidiary it has set up in Western Australia and which I had the privilege of visiting with the Parliamentary delegation to Australia. The firm in my constituency supplies specialised components from the Sidcup factory and regards it as vital to supply its subsidiary. In order to meet agreed dates, goods have been trans-shipped at Rotterdam and then sent to Freetown.
The London Docks are 12 to 14 miles from my constituency and are the natural outlet for these exporters. Of necessity, however, many of them have been forced to undertake the long haul to King's Lynn or Grimsby or Hull in order to keep delivery dates. Again these goods have been trans-shipped at Rotterdam, which must do a lot of business out of our delays.
Another well-known domestic appliance company in the Cray Valley exports, along with other factories throughout the country bearing the same name, to about 105 overseas territories. It has missed


several ships. It has sometimes heard later that only half of the cargo has been loaded—and all without notification until outraged customers have demanded to know why only half the cargo has arrived. Conscious of the very intense competition from overseas, this company has always given top priority to the export trade. It is often found that ships on which its goods have been booked have sailed without them. One ship sailed 4,000 tons light of its cargo to Hong Kong and Singapore.
My constituents take the view that the quicker the export goods get to the customers the quicker we shall get their next order, and they are very deeply conscious that valuable customers are completely without some of the Christmas stock for which they placed orders last June—some even in March. The goods were produced and were ready to go on the right ships at the right time. Some firms have even told me that some overseas buyers have suggested they should cut their price by the 1½ per cent. bonus that the Government are giving to exporters.
Yet another firm, in which one of my constituents is interested, based in Scotland—the President of the Board of Trade has knowledge of it—exports over half of its refrigerator compressors. This trade totals about £3 million in exports a year. In the teeth of very strong European competition it was very proud to gain some very important Swedish orders. The goods were accepted at the Newcastle docks on 6th or 13th October, but not loaded, and it was not until the outraged customer sent a cable that the firm learned that the goods had not arrived. The customer pointed out that, without the shipment, his entire factory deliveries would be at a standstill. The firm had to find alternative means of delivery. Another consignment, this time to Hull, was not loaded although the ship sailed on 16th October 450 tons light, with the firm's goods left on the quayside.
I believe that our exporters are among the most valuable contributors to our economy and having won orders against the Japs, or the Americans or the Germans or anyone else, and having completed their orders, it is nothing short of heart breaking to find themselves black-

listed by customers because the goods have not been delivered on the due date.
On the other side of the trade, I have had the position of the customer put to me both in Canada and Australia. I heard very bitter criticism indeed of our delivery dates. In Canada I heard complaints that Christmas goods had arrived six weeks late and that the company involved would never get another order. In Australia we on the Parliamentary delegation were somewhat searching in our inquiries as to why there was not a larger quantity of United Kingdom plant in the great and visionary Snowy Mountains project.
We were told the reason in the bluntest Australian fashion—and the Australians can speak bluntly when they want to. I happened to keep a detailed diary at the time and I looked up the entry last night. We were told: "Every stage of development is on time. We are dedicated to keeping this great project up to schedule. We have to plan our work for three months of snow and if your deliveries were a month late we would lose four months' operations. We are not interested in your dock troubles. If you cannot meet the delivery dates the Americans, the Swedes, the Japs and the Germans can and they get the orders."
I know what our docks can do. A relative of mine spent seven years trooping during and after the war and, having had experience of New York, Sydney and Cape Town, he has always boasted that no docks in the world can turn a ship round faster than London and Liverpool. This was the Dunkirk spirit in a war for freedom. We are now faced with an economic war for our survival as a great industrial nation and for the maintenance of the standard of living we want both to maintain and expand.
Exporters are powerless once the goods have left their plants and have been accepted by the docks. When one compares the speed of many competing docks abroad with the speed of our docks, one sees that their increased efficiency lies not only in modern layout and, in some instances, mechanisation, but also in a modern union approach, with fewer conflicting unions and far less demarcation of jobs.
I believe that our London dockers have nothing to learn in their skill, their


knowledge and their handling of cargoes from any dockers anywhere in the world, however good and however modern the docks, but they are enmeshed in nineteenth century regulations which could be endured when cock-of-the-walk London had the greatest exporting docks in the world with very few competitors. Today the foreign customer is not interested in our problems. He is interested only in our deliveries.
I believe that the Minister and his colleagues face a very great challenge here. He and his colleagues, by speeding up the plans outlined by his predecessor in taking through the House, with all-party support, the Harbours Bill, which was based on the Rochdale Report, could strike a greater blow for our exports and encourage more customers to order our goods from abroad than could anyone else. If the right hon. Gentleman and, particularly, the Minister of Labour could help to improve not only the layout and the mechanisation but also the methods and the ramifications, which are so very nineteenth century, of many of the union practices in the docks today, they could do a great deal to help our exporters.
I speak very strongly on behalf of the very solid exporting group in my constituency. We can boast very full employment for my constituents. I hope that the Minister will consider the problem which I have raised as one which merits top priority.

2.22 p.m.

Mr. Julian Ridsdale: First, I should like to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Cold-field (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd) on having introduced this vital subject on the Adjournment debate, and, secondly, I should like to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith) on underlining so rightly the fact that what is needed more than anything else is a modern union approach to the situation in the docks. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield said, what is needed more than anything else is urgent action by the Government.
I intervene for only o few moments to give an example which I have experienced in Harwich, and which illustrates only too tragically one of the causes of the delays at present being experienced

in the docks. This is a dispute between union and non-union labour. It is particularly related to what is happening in London, and it shows how the long tentacles of restrictive practices in the Port of London are trying to spread out to the smaller ports to where some firms have moved in order to get away from these very practices and in order to try to find some freedom in these smaller ports.
This example concerns a small firm employing just over 150 men in my constituency. The firm makes caravans, the vast majority of which go to the export trade. At present, its exports are being deliberately held up at the Port of Parkeston, and have been so held up for the last few weeks. Unfortunately, just over a month ago an industrial dispute resulted in the management sacking nine trade union members. Incidentally, the management, which consists of four brothers, has built up the firm over the past 10 years from nothing. During the last few years they have moved to Harwich from Ilford because of the restrictive practices in the London Docks and because of the ease with which it is possible to export from Harwich.
As a protest against the sacking of these trade union members, a number of workers walked out of the factory. Some time later an official strike was declared involving members of five unions, but mainly members of the National Union of Vehicle Builders. The men who went on strike claimed to have over 70 men on their strike register. They wanted union recognition at the factory. In spite of the loss of the union men, production at the factory is up and things are running very smoothly indeed.
But this is where the rub comes in: the union men in the Port of Parkeston, which is the British Railways port for Harwich, refuse to handle the vital exports of this firm because of this dispute, and a private enterprise port in Harwich, from which exports are sent to the Continent, is apparently nervous of exporting these caravans because of the action which might be taken by the National Union of Vehicle Builders.
It is a tragic situation, but I am sure that it portrays in a small way the very narrow-mindedness of some individuals who, because of a dispute which in many ways is none of their business, are holding up our vital exports to the Continent.
It is all very well for the Prime Minister to appeal for the Dunkirk spirit, but does he realise what the unions are doing in this case alone? I am most disturbed, for it shows how intolerant and interwoven the net of the unions is becoming and how, in this case, officially or unofficially, it is working to destroy the free flow of goods through our ports. If this is only an example of what is happening in the Port of London, I am most disturbed.
I know that London does not like the competition of the smaller ports, but how else, save by competition, are we to break this deadly stranglehold which the unions, through such practices, are putting on the lifeblood of the country? To show how much this competition is resented, I am told that the London Federation of Shop Stewards is holding a march through Harwich on 4th January to shake people up in the town to the advantages of trade unionism.
I have always supported trade unionism, but what is happening in the Ports of Parkeston and Harwich at a time like this, when every export should be sent abroad as soon as possible, shakes me. I hope that the Minister will look into this and will get in touch with the Minister of Labour to try to put an end to this practice which is preventing our vital exports from being sent abroad.
It does not surprise me in the least that we are having trouble with our exports when I hear such stories such as this. At a time like this, when one hopes that the spirit of Christmas will prevail, I hope that a little common sense will be introduced to iron out this sorry business which has gone on for over a month.
It is for this reason that I support most heartily my right hon. Friend's request, because now more than at any time urgent action is needed by the Government to get rid of these outworn practices and to introduce a spirit of urgency into our export trade. I therefore hope that the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Transport will take steps to end this sorry dispute which is afflicting my constituency and, I know, the country, too.

2.29 p.m.

Mr. Martin McLaren: I am glad to follow in the debate my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich

(Mr. Ridsdale), because he represents one docks constituency and I represent another, as I have the Port of Avonmouth in the part of Bristol which I represent. We have already been told various causes of delays in the docks. I should like to deal mainly with another—the fact that the physical layout of our ports and the approaches to them are obsolescent.
If we look at the history of docks in this country, we find that the great days of dock construction were in the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century, up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. During the 50 years since 1914 relatively little development has taken place. Whether that was because the ownership of the docks did not have the spur of private enterprise, I do not know, but that is true as a historical fact. It therefore follows that the docks were laid out in the railway age before the internal combustion engine was invented.
For this reason, there is a network of railway lines and sidings in the docks, and both pedestrians and road traffic have to dodge between shunting trains at some peril to themselves. Before one even arrives at the dock gate one has to thread one's way through a collection of narrow and antiquated streets.
In these conditions, it is not surprising if road transport cannot be deployed to the best advantage or if there are prolonged delays in the docks. This is a situation which I judge is likely to become more acute as each year passes, since the tendency is to use road transport rather than rail transport for sending goods to the docks. As has been said by my right hon. and hon. Friends, how different the picture is in continental ports such as Hamburg and Rotterdam. They had the great advantage of having to rebuild from scratch following war damage, and they certainly seized that opportunity with both hands. This is perhaps one reason why we run the risk that in marginal cases shipping may be diverted by shipowners from our ports to continental ports. That is especially so in the entrepôt trade.
Faced, as we are, with these delays, we might do well to look round the country and away from the congestion


of the south-east of England or Merseyside and consider whether we can lay out a modern and spacious system suitable to modern road transport with wide boulevards where lorries can be dealt with and called forward by the aid of computers and electronic devices. This is possible in this age of automation.
An example which I should like to mention for three or four minutes comes from next door to my constituency. I refer to the proposal of the Port of Bristol Authority for an entirely new dock development at a place called Portbury, on the other side of the River Avon from the existing docks at Avonmouth. There is available there an open site of 2,000 acres which is near the deep water, and on one of the four major estuaries in this country—the Thames, Humber, Mersey and the Bristol Channel—where the Rochdale Committee recommended that dock development should be specially concentrated.
One of the special features of this place at Portbury is that it will have access by road which will be unparalleled by and second to that of no other dock, because it is very close to the cross roads of the M.4 from London to South Wales and the M.5 from Birmingham to Exeter. Therefore, every point of the compass can be reached by motorway transport. It is also close to the existing management at Avonmouth and to the existing supplies of dock labour. It is estimated that this development will cost about £27 million, but the Port of Bristol is able to find the whole of that sum through its own resources and borrowing capacity without asking for help from the taxpayer or ratepayer.
Under the Harbours Act, 1964, it rests with the National Ports Council to decide whether this project should be recommended to the Minister of Transport. The Council has been invited to go to Portbury to make a personal inspection of the site. I have been given to understand that, in reply, it has said that it will try to go there about Easter next year. We feel rather disappointed that it cannot go more promptly. I venture to say that it should respond to the invitation with a greater sense of urgency.
To support that, I should like to read one very short paragraph from the Rochdale Report. Paragraph 68 is the last paragraph in the chapter entitled
Are the major ports adequate to meet present and future national needs?
It states:
We wish finally to observe that major development schemes normally take several years to complete and we therefore emphasise the importance of plans for suitable high priority schemes being drawn up and work starting without delay. The longer a start is delayed the more serious will be the consequences later on.
Perhaps the Chairman of the National Ports Council will remind himself of those wise words of the Rochdale Committee and introduce a greater sense of urgency into the timing of his visit. I know that the Council has a great many different things to do and has been asked to go to a great many places, but we urge that this is an assignment of first importance.
The Report recommended that the question of a decision on Portbury should be postponed until a proposed merger between Bristol and Newport had taken place, but since then it has been agreed that that proposed merger should be abandoned and therefore the way is clear for approval of the Portbury project.
Time moves on. It is now nearly four years since the Rochdale Committee was appointed—in March, 1961. It is 2½ years since it reported—in July, 1962. It must be remembered that the mere setting up of the Rochdale Committee has contributed to the delay, because it was naturally said, first, "We must wait until the Rochdale Committee has reported." Then, when it reported, it was said, "We must wait until the National Ports Council has been set up and has had a chance to grapple with its many problems." It is, however, important that the Council should not become a brake on dock development. It should be an accelerator and a spur. If projects such as Portbury can rapidly he improved and carried out we may have some hope that the delays in the docks, which are the subject of this debate, may be reduced for the benefit of the national economy.

2.40 p.m.

Mr. John Harvey: If I begin with, perhaps, the uncharitable comment that the colossal


emptiness of the benches opposite has produced so far not one hon. Member who is apparently interested in this vital topic, the Minister will, perhaps, forgive me for that opening if I go on to accept that he has been in office only a relatively few weeks and that in the quite considerable volume of correspondence that I have already transacted both with him and with his Joint Parliamentary Secretary, and in watching their performance at the Dispatch Box, I am impressed so far with the Department's work. That is not necessarily something that I would be prepared to concede of every other Minister and Parliamentary Secretary on the benches opposite. I will say that in the spirit of Christmas.
To come to the point of this afternoon's debate, the Minister would, I am sure, concede that a satisfactory solution to this very real problem is vital to each and every one of us, because the problem is today a serious brake on export efficiency from the United Kingdom. To me, that is what matters, and it should be what matters to anyone in any part of the House of Commons as we consider the situation that this all too brief debate is bringing to the notice of the House.
The first thing that needs to be said is that whatever one may argue about the docks and the need for modernisation, on which some commencement has already been made and on which, certainly, we shall support the Minister in any proposals which he has for further progress, the fact which is salient today is that a ship in the Port of London is being worked for only 25 per cent. of the time she spends in port.
An average cargo vessel today, having been specially constructed, let it be borne in mind, for higher speeds than we were ever used to in my day in the Merchant Navy, having been specially constructed for higher speeds to hasten trade across the seas of the world—

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: And at considerable expense.

Mr. Harvey: —at considerable expense, as my right hon. Friend correctly interjects, is subject in London to inordinate delays in comparison with most other ports that one can think of. Indeed, in many ports a ship would

be expected to be worked for 50 or 60 per cent. of her time in port as a matter of course and, as has been pointed out, in some of the most modern ports 100 per cent. is capable of achievement.
When the figure gets down to 25 per cent. and when one bears in mind that it costs roughly £35,000 a month to run a modern ship of 8,000–10,000 tons, if she is delayed for 75 per cent. of her time in any port this is a crippling charge on the running of the ship and a crippling burden upon our capacity as a nation to export efficiently.
The problem has become much accentuated in recent months because of the refusal in the Port of London to work over weekends. One can understand, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd), who initiated this debate, suggested, some of the background to the labour problems that exist in the industry, but one thing which one cannot accept is that the unions should at one and the same time refuse weekend work and refuse to countenance any expansion in the dock labour force.
I do not this afternoon want to enter into any deep arguments about the long-term solution of the problem of dock labour beyond accepting what has already been suggested that progress to a shift system, with all that it may mean in terms of additional wages in the docks, but all that it should mean, too, in terms of additional efficiency, is almost certainly the right sort of long-term or even medium-term answer at which to aim.
The point I am anxious to make this afternoon is that since about March of this year in the Port of London, one of the world's greatest ports and one of the most vital ports to Britain's capacity to export, we have been faced with a labour situation which is militating against our whole capacity to export efficiently. This must necessarily be of as much concern to the Government as to these benches, and of as much concern to the Minister of Transport as to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to the Minister of Labour. It is a matter to which someone must find a sensible answer and to which the Dunkirk spirit certainly must find a


sensible answer as quickly as possible. That is the most fundamental point I want to make.
I not infrequently go down to the docks in London. I was there only last week and I was struck by the simply colossal congestion and the fact that long queues of traffic were occasioned by one driver, who had probably himself become fed up with a long period of waiting, who had done something rather stupid and held up 30 or 40 other lorries all waiting to get through to different ships. This sort of thing happens almost daily.
I wonder whether the Minister of Transport might not almost immediately try to seize himself of information about how much railway track there is, especially in some of the older docks in London, that is virtually never used nowadays and whether he might not then deduce that the sensible thing is to give immediate orders for this sort of track to be concreted over to become either an additional means of access for lorries or turning and manœuvring ground for them, which of itself would facilitate the progress of the eternal procession of road vehicles that are trying to get things into or out of the docks.
Anyone who goes down to the docks today and witnesses the congestion there cannot but marvel at how the stuff ever gets to the docks in the first place, because the congestion often begins long before it gets to the docks. I recognise that this is a medium to long-term problem, but these are the sort of questions which have to be answered.
It is in this positive spirit that I have tried briefly to pose some of the real problems that now exist and which, for one perhaps human reason or another, have become exacerbated during 1964. It probably has to be conceded that an abnormally heavy volume of imports during this year has also added to the congestion, but the fact remains that there is serious congestion and that some answer has to be found to it.
And some answer must be evoked in terms of good will from the dockers themselves. Some answer must be found which will get people back at work on Saturdays and Sundays—in their own interests, certainly; but in the national interest very much more than their own,

because otherwise the export trade, on which the solvency of the Government and of the nation depends more than on anything else, is doomed to suffer as seriously in 1965 as it has disappointed our hopes in 1964.
So let me, in this I hope not too partisan spirit, stress to the right hon. Gentleman that, whatever party points one might care to make across the Floor on this particular issue, the need for action now is imperative, and that it is to him, and one or two of his colleagues immediately concerned, we have to look for action now.

2.51 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: I suppose it is no exaggeration to say that, after defence, the two most important jobs of a Government are to maintain a high level of employment and to maintain a high level of exports. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that in exports the dockers hold the key to the solution of the difficulties which we have been discussing this afternoon in this debate. It is no good our talking about incentives for exports if we cannot get the goods across the docks, and we cannot get the goods across the docks unless we have peaceful, proper labour relations in the docks.
Of course, the need for improvement in labour relations applies to many industries, but it is particularly urgent in the docks at present. If anyone had set out deliberately to devise the most chaotic, the most ridiculous, the most Alice in Wonderland wage structure he could not have done better than the wage structure for dockers at present. For half his earnings the docker relies on special rates and plusages, and it is he who takes a risk on whether he can earn those or not. That is to say, he takes the risk whether a vessel waiting to be loaded or unloaded happens to carry those special rates.
The docker's basic wage was, until recently, £9 9s. 2d. a week. Now the recommendation of the Devlin Report is £10 8s. 4d. a week. The average of earnings for dockers is £18 18s. 5d. a week, probably something varying between £17 and £20 a week, in different parts of the country. That sounds good, but it is desperately difficult for a docker and his family to run a home on earnings


which fluctuate between £9 and £30 a week; and it is pure luck which week he gets that £30.
That sort of bingo type of earnings is not calculated to bring about decent labour relations. I think that anything more calculated to cause continual friction and unrest can scarcely be imagined. Yet both sides of the industry at present, including the Devlin Committee, seek to patch up this type of wage structure, to perpetuate it by adding little bits on to it. For example, the Devlin Committee advised an increase of 19s. 2d. in the basic wage.
I would suggest that we scrap completely this type of wage structure and replace it by weekly contracts between the individual employer and the registered docker, contracts for a five-day week, eight hours a day, a 40-hour week, at £20 a week; £20 a week for a docker who has been registered for five years, to start as a registered docker at £15 a week. He would have the usual additions for overtime on more than a 40-hour week, but we should cut out any reliance on special rates. I will not weary the House about the details of those who might not be able to obtain weekly contracts, but that can be worked out fairly for them.
I am convinced that if the present system were scrapped—and I believe that that is desired by the majority of dockers—and replaced by a weekly wage-paid registered labour force, then the scheme, given a chance, would bring about very much better relations on the docks, and from that we should be able to decrease the delays on the docks and get exports across the docks. If there is to be any scheme of this sort, it must be under an enforceable contract between the unions and the employers, lasting for some considerable time—a firm contract for, say, three years.
The unions really must abandon their cut-throat local empire building. As representing a constituency on Merseyside and having had some experience of Liverpool docks, as I am there fairly frequently, I have seen the irreparable damage which has been done by the squabbles between the "White" and "Blue" unions. The unions should be capable of entering into a binding and enforceable contract for at least a matter of three years with the employers' associations for a firm, steady

wage such as I have described. The contract should provide for joint authority formed by the two unions concerned to negotiate with the employers and to arrange welfare matters.
Of course, one cannot achieve everything by agreements concerning labour, but such agreements as I have suggested would apply modern ideas of service and pay, modern ideas of conditions of work, to a very conservative industry—"conservative" with a small "c"—and an almost hereditary industry, for every present docker seems to come from a line of dockers; their families have always been dockers; and they are very conservative, and very reluctant to change their ways.
So we need not only the realisation of these difficulties in labour relations, but also, of course, physical modernisation of the docks—modernisation of the docks, and of the handling of goods on the docks, and, indeed, modernisation of the housing of the dockers. The docker, if anybody, is a man who needs to live near his work.
There is the greatest opportunity around our docks for pilot schemes of new towns within the old. I think that the Government ought to give attention to the rebuilding of the homes of dockers around the docks, and, in addition, working into a scheme of that sort, the improvement of the docks themselves. The docks themselves must be quickly improved and expanded. The lack of deep water berths is nothing less than a scandal.
I have a constituency interest here, which, for the benefit of those on Merseyside, I can express by saying that I want Disraeli alongside Gladstone. The Disraeli, or Beaconsfield Dock, was planned about half a century ago, and it is only this year that the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board has asked for a report on whether it is feasible to build that new dock. Perhaps the Government might look at this to see whether the scheme can be brought forward to provide the new dock facilities at an early date.
Much has been done in the Liverpool docks to improve handling equipment, and productivity per man has increased substantially over the past few years, but the Government could assist in quickening the pace of modernisation of materials


handling. After all, we subsidise hot houses for forcing the growth of tomatoes. Might we not subsidise, at least by loan, fork lifts for forcing the growth of exports? Machinery and equipment are not enough. There is the human element, too, and it is essential that some intense work study be applied to handling on the docks.
Nothing could be more rewarding in economic benefit to this country than to get the labour relations right at the docks by permanent rather than casual employment, to improve the security of the docker in his work and in his home, and to improve the physical handling of goods at the docks.

3.3 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I shall try to limit what I have to say to four or five minutes to allow adequate time to the two right hon. Gentlemen who are to close this part of the debate. In any event, I think that the Minister of Transport must feel slightly like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, because he knows very well, and he is sitting their brooding over it, that any short-term solution of this problem, the reality of which we recognise, lies with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour rather than with himself.
The damage caused by the present situation has been well described by my right hon. and hon. Friends and I do not wish to traverse that ground again except to mention, by way of example, a letter to the Press recently by one of my constituents, who pointed out that out of 331 cases delivered to the London docks on time, only 31 cases had been loaded on to a ship by 5 p.m. The dockers then refused to work overtime and stopped work. Thus, 300 cases were left behind as the ship had to sail the next day, and a delay of a week occurred before the cases could be dispatched to the United States—another example of the split consignment to which my hon. Friend referred.
He went on to say:
Owing to the 'Go Slow' activities in the London Docks there are often 50 or more lorries in a queue waiting to unload goods. One consignment to France of heavy cases and light ones was delayed because the dockers went on strike because they wanted extra money for loading light cargo.
Later in his letter he pointed out that to keep a customer he had to consign his

freight by air at ten times the cost, and of course at a ruinous loss to his company, but he thought it worth while to do that to keep the customer.
That is the state of affairs about which we are concerned today. What is the cause of it, and what can be done to cure it? This is at the moment a short-term problem. We all know that there are long-term and physical considerations for a cure—such as were considered by the Rochdale Committee and for which the way has been paved by the 1964 Act—but they will take a long time. This is something which has primarily developed since March, when the somewhat unexpected wage claim was put in. It would be nice to think that Mr. Cousins could solve the problem, but, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, Mr. Cousins had reached agreement with the employers on 1st October and it was repudiated by a delegate conference.
The real trouble at the present time in the London Docks is that nobody is in control on the labour side. The union leadership is not ill-disposed in this matter. Even the blue card union is perhaps not ill-disposed, but unofficial elements are in fact in command, and London is now the only port in the United Kingdom which is not operating weekend work. That is where the worst delays occur. When conditions have reached their present state, nothing but overtime and weekend working can clear up the mess. That is why I describe this as a short-term problem. All the other things are desirable, necessary, and valuable, but when things are in their present state in the London Docks, only overtime and weekend working will do what is necessary.
We would get overtime and weekend working if it were left to the unions, to the Dock Labour Board, or to the Minister of Labour. Perhaps I can help the right hon. Gentleman by saying what he would find it embarrassing to say. The fact is that labour relations in the London Docks are in the control of two or three men who are Communists, and whose main interest seems to be to damage the interests of their country. That is why we are in this situation. They are in fact ensconced in a position of tremendous power to inflict harm on the commercial interests of this country. They are inflicting this harm, and nobody


seems able to stop them. That is why I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friend is not here. This is a problem which he has to face to get responsible labour relations back into the docks.
I know that there are two sides to everything. There is a history stretching into the past, but the question is, whose turn is it now to contribute to the short-term position in the London Docks? The men have had the Devlin award, and progress is being made in the other matters. It is their turn, and there is no other solution in the short term. I do not know how he is going to solve this problem, but it is one which I leave on the right hon. Gentleman's plate.

3.8 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: This debate has posed a case which calls for an answer. I do not think that anyone can mistake the fact that the growing volume of anxiety about the operation of our docks points to a real problem. No doubt one example or another which is quoted may be attributable to purely special causes—one cannot investigate and analyse them all—but there certainly would not be this general feeling, not merely of dissatisfaction, but of utter frustration, about the operation of our docks unless there were a real and a recent phenomenon before us.
It is, moreover, a phenomenon which, though it is not limited to London—and hon. Members who have spoken in the debate have referred to other ports—does concentrate to a great degree on the Port of London, as I think was summed up in one figure quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. John Harvey) when he contrasted the fraction of time during which a ship is worked in the London docks with the average in docks generally.
No doubt there is a long-term aspect to the problem of dock working. No doubt there is much to be done—and some of the speeches, such as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. McLaren), referred to some of it—in providing this country with as modern a dock system as greater misfortune has helped other countries to acquire; but we are not this afternoon

concerned with that. We are concerned with the short-term problem, a real and urgent one, which, in its present phase and intensity, was not there at all six or nine months ago.
I recognise that there is a division of ministerial responsibility here; that responsibility is divided between at least three Departments—the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Labour and the Board of Trade—[An HON. MEMBER: "And the Prime Minister."] Yes, and the Prime Minister. But I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman recognises that he speaks from that Bench for the Government, and that he will not seek to reply to the debate on a narrowly departmental basis.
I put it to him briefly that, confronted with this recent real and urgent phenomenon, it is his duty to state his analysis of the causes and his explanation why difficulties which did not exist six or nine months ago are now causing this outcry from exporters and industrial areas throughout the country; and then, having candidly analysed what he considers to be the reasons for this, to state, as far as the answers are within the power of the Government, what the Government intend to do.
My last word is to reiterate the urgency of the matter. A number of studies are in progress. The right hon. Gentleman could mention—it has not been mentioned so far—the second part of the Devlin investigation. But the amelioration of this situation is needed in weeks rather than months, not to mention years. I hope that it will be in that time scale that the right hon. Gentleman will pitch his reply to what I am sure he will recognise has been an extremely responsible debate.

3.12 p.m.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Tom Fraser): I say at once that the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd) could not have chosen a more apt subject for debate as we go away for the Christmas Recess than the subject of the great congestion in our docks and its adverse effect upon our export business.
This matter has given me great cause for worry during the few weeks that I have been in office. A great deal of the discussion has centred around the


responsibility of the dockers for the troubles that we have at present, and I make no complaint about that. Nor shall I seek to dodge the issue by saying that this is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour.
But what I do say right away is that the great improvements which have been brought about in the techniques of production in our manufacturing industries have in no way been matched by the improvements in the techniques of transport, of getting our goods from the factories to the docks, or, within the docks themselves, in the handling of goods for export, or even goods imported into this country.
Of course, there have been improvements here and there, and a lot of money has been spent here and there on new equipment. But no one can deny that in the handling of goods we have not made anything like the progress that has been made in the manufacturing of goods. None of us is satisfied with what has been achieved so far, even in manufacturing. This only brings out how far short we are falling of what must be achieved in the interests of the country in the transport of goods and their handling, particularly for export.
Not surprisingly, several hon. Members have paid tribute to my predecessor. I do not complain about that, but they have given the impression that he had brought a very great drive into the solution of the problem that we are dealing with. I take leave to cast a little doubt on that. I remember the debate on the Rochdale Committee's Report and the passage of the Bill, and I well appreciate how much it was supported on all sides. But it was a long-term Measure, and what we were doing then was merely to create machinery by which we would in future seek the improvements in the docks which were recognised by all to be absolutely essential to the improvement of our trade with other parts of the world.
Incidentally, the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. McLaren), after some of his hon. Friends had greatly praised the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples), hardly seemed to be doing that when he complained about the time it had taken between the setting-up of the Rochdale Committee and the receipt of its Report, and pointed out that a long time had also elapsed

since we had that Report, and that we were still waiting for things to happen.
Much as I would like to discuss the long-term solutions of the problem, I would have thought that if I did so I would be rightly accused of misusing this occasion. What we have to do now is to concentrate our attention on the problems immediately in front of us. I say at once that the single most effective step towards reducing the present congestion would be a full resumption of weekend working. I have no doubt of that whatsoever, and I would have thought that no responsible person could duck that. It is the greatest single cause of delay, and so the greatest single contribution to solving the problem could be made if the dockers undertook to go back to their normal practice of overtime and weekend working.
I make the strongest possible appeal to those who may influence the decision of the dockers to appreciate the damage that they are doing to the well-being of our great nation by steps which they may think are supportable in their demand or desire to have leisure over the weekend, like most other people. I am not averse to their looking to the possibility of a longer-term solution of their problem, but if they try to solve it in the short term at the expense of the economic well-being of this country it may be that in the result we shall all have greater problems to face and solve in the future.
I know full well that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour would say just as much as I would on this, and perhaps even more. In any case he would say it much more ably than I do. Too little has been done over the last half century to put our docks and ports into reasonable order. I do not want to apportion blame—I have made my appeal to the workers—but I must tell the House that my inquiries in recent weeks have shown that the very exporters whom we want to help, and with whom we have the greatest sympathy, are sometimes themselves to blame for the congestion.
We hear a lot about the rule among our workers of "last in, first out". The consignors of exports know this one, too. When they know the period during which a ship will be loaded they know that if they can get their goods loaded last they will be unloaded first. Knowing that, they endeavour to be last in, with


the result that there is little doing at the beginning of the period when the ship should be loading, and a very busy time towards the date when the ship is due to sail. Sometimes, indeed, consignors send their goods to the ship the day after it should have left on its journey overseas, banking on the ship's being delayed, as it so frequently has been in the past, because of congestion in the docks.
What can we do about this? The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield said that a committee of officials was not enough. Obviously the right hon. Gentleman knew of the committees of officials, presided over by the Permanent Secretary of my Department, which has been dealing with this problem in recent weeks. A committee of officials may sometimes be able to get around a lot more than a committee of Ministers.
This committee of officials has been doing a very useful job of work. I am delighted to say—though hon. Members should not take my delight as complacency—that it has met with some success. The congestion which is of the greatest importance to us is that which exists in the Port of London and at Liverpool. Most of our exports go through these two great ports. These are the two ports where the congestion has been worst.
In the many meetings which have taken place, the Chamber of Shipping has cooperated by providing for the diversion of ships to other ports. Sometimes it is felt that not enough is being done in that way. The dock authorities are undertaking a more systematic form of notifying the exporters, the consignors, about when they will be able to get to a ship. Some very surprising things have happened in this connection, at least they were surprising to me. I discovered that when it was sought to improve the system of informing the exporters the work involved put an undue strain on the available telephone service and that many additional telephones had to be installed.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: The representation of the Port of London in Birmingham and the Midlands has been very useful. I believe that it would help very much were the size of that representation increased in Birmingham so that contact could be kept with exporters.

Mr. Fraser: I shall be delighted to do what I can to help in that matter.
I believe that there is a considerable delay, but having said a word about the telephones let me say something about the lorries. The Road Haulage Association is not happy at having so many lorries standing about for days on end in the docks. The Association is co-operating in getting a more consistent and regular flow of vehicles, as it may be notified, so as to avoid drivers and loads being held up too long when they arrive inside the docks. My information is, and all the inquiries have suggested, that the delays are caused within the docks and not on the highway on the way to the docks. It is a problem at the docks and not highway congestion generally as some people seemed to assume that it might be.
A lot of congestion in the docks is occasioned by the handling of goods coming into the docks and keeping the exports out of the docks. I was a little surprised to find that there was so much delay resulting in this way. Apparently importers have used the sheds and other facilities to an excessive extent by marking up their imports for customers in the sheds, and sometimes in the ships thus holding up the unloading of the ships. This sort of thing has gone on, I believe, to an inordinate length, and has caused unjustifiable delays in the turn round of ships at the docks.
I assume the major responsibility in this matter, but I feel that I have been considerably helped by the committee of officials which has been working on this problem during recent weeks. This does not mean that I am prepared to leave the matter there. I am not. I regard this as something to which I must continue to give my personal attention almost day to day. I am sure that I speak for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, also, when I say that I shall not rest content until the congestion has been removed and we have solved the problem of the long waiting periods about which we read—I have been reading about them more than most in the past four weeks.
I cannot pretend that I can see this problem being solved immediately. Even with the resumption of weekend working it looks as if it would now be a month


or more before the London docks, in particular, could be freed to get back to normal working. If we do not have a resumption of weekend working nobody knows how long this will go on. I shall not go into a lot of the statistical detail which I have before me, or seek to reply individually to the speeches which have been made. I think that it would be as well if I were not to do that, but rather give the House my assurance, which I so readily do, that a great many of the things which have been said—although they had relevance to the problems at particular docks and were posed to hon. Members, very rightly, by exporters—bear strong similarities to the representations made to me over a wider field.
I am most anxious to solve the problem. I shall continue to give it all my attention. I have had a lot of consultations with my colleagues. I shall continue to consult them and to take every possible step I can to break through the barrier which is standing in the way of the successful discharge of our responsibilities in the export field.

Mr. Harold Gurden: Since there is a considerable amount of agreement on the necessity for overtime and weekend working, could not the Minister possibly invoke the assistance of his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour in getting an emergency meeting immediately after Christmas to see whether we could not get something moving very quickly?

Mr. Fraser: I will certainly do that, but I am mindful that a good many of the things I have talked about are being looked at by the Devlin Committee. But that Committee, of course, is long term, and we must not let that stand in the way of what we might be able to do now. I will certainly look into that suggestion with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour.

ROYAL ASSENT

3.29 p.m.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners;

The House went:—and, having returned:

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to;

1. Ministers of the Crown Act 1964.
2. Clyde Navigation Order Confirmation Act 1964.
3. Glasgow Corporation Consolidation (Water, Transport and Markets) Order Confirmation Act.

Question again proposed, That this House do now adjourn.

EMPLOYMENT (OVER-FIFTIES)

3.41 p.m.

Mr. Dudley Smith: This is the season of good will. It is, therefore, appropriate that the final debate in this series today should be on an intensely human problem. This is one which I submit to the House needs tact, understanding and, above all, renewed appreciation on the part of industry, commerce and Government. I further submit that it is a problem which is growing. I refer to the question of the employment problems of those over 50. All the remarks I shall make today in a reasonably brief speech will be non-partisan, because this is a non-political matter. It was in existence at the time of the last Government. It will be in existence during the time of the present Government. Whichever party is in power during the next 10 years the problem will still be in existence then.
Those concerned are largely professional and commercial people and a certain number of skilled workers. I do not want to deal today with the artisan, because, important as he is, he is a special problem in himself. When he is over 50, he usually finds it fairly easy to get other employment. We know there are problems of automation causing redundancy and involving the question of retraining, but this is a vast and massive subject which needs to be dealt with specially.
My point concerns people who would call themselves of the executive and


higher executive class. The cry "Too old at 50" has been growing ever since the end of the Second World War. Everywhere in management and in industry the call is for young men. The age level is coming down. We hear now that the cry is "Too old at 45". I imagine that as time passes it will become lower than that. Indeed, a visitor returning to these islands after an absence of, say, 25 years might be pardoned for thinking, if he examined industry and management, that we are so age-conscious that we judge everything as if we were running a professional football team or a school for jet pilots.
Some hon. Members might think it is ironical that a Member of Parliament should even seek to raise this subject, because he is in surely the most insecure profession of them all. But as a background to the attitude that we have as a country on this question, I do not think it is inappropriate to refer to politics. This disease seems to have spread to political parties. More and more selection committees as regards my own side of the House and selection conferences, which I believe is the term used by hon. Members opposite, are now loth to choose men who are over 50, whatever their abilities.
Most men who come into the House nowadays are exceedingly young in political terms. I am pleased to see the Joint Parliamentary Secretary here today. He and I entered the House in 1959. He knows that there is this trend in politics, because at that time, in common with my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), we were among the 30 youngest Members of the House. I must inform the hon. Gentlemen that the odds are getting a little longer now. I believe that we are now among the 100 youngest. This is symptomatic of the age in which we live. There is this climate of feeling throughout the country in all the professions and all the vocations.
There are a number of reasons for the difficulties when one considers the case of industry and of commerce. Managements in many cases seem to get to the stage when they think that only young people can provide what they want. Apart from their top executives, as time goes on managements tolerate their older employees, if they are good employees,

and keep them in employment. If they are bad employees, often managements begin to bring about economies and as a result those who have been there longest are often among the first to go. This is a very bad trend.
Once a man is over 45 he usually finds that he is stuck with his old firm, unless he is a top executive with rather exceptional bargaining powers. Firms know this all too well. Men when they get over 50 are certainly vulnerable to any changes which are made. The professional man or the one in commerce or industry who has a disagreement with his employers or who resigns or who is dismissed, often for no particular reason of inefficiency, finds it increasingly difficult to get comparably paid employment when he seeks a job elsewhere.
When I first raised this question in the House during the lifetime of the last Government, I received a certain amount of publicity about it. I was amazed at the dozens of letters which came in from all parts of the country. Some of these letters were among the most moving I have received during my time as a Member of the House. There is something rather tragic about a man who finds that he has been cast on to the scrap heap and who believes he still has a good deal to contribute to the life of the country. The unemployed man, if he has good qualifications, particularly if he has a degree, has a better chance than the others, even though it is still extremely difficult. But a man who is just able, without any qualifications, immediately drops down to the lowest earning level and becomes just an ordinary clerk. He often has to take semi-skilled work—for instance, driving or as a sales representative—to earn money and keep body and soul together.
I was amazed from the correspondence I received at the diversity of those who are affected. They range from a research scientist to a marine captain and from an ex-colonial police chief to a registered medical practitioner.
One of the main reasons for this problem is the incidence of take-overs and mergers, which often have devastating results on the long-term employee. I give one example which was drawn to my attention, because it is symptomatic of so many others. This was a case in north London, a man who had worked


his way up from the very bottom. He had been a junior clerk in 1924. By his own efforts he reached the status of office manager in 1942. In 1944 he became sales director of his company. In 1956, because of his excellence, he became deputy chairman. When the chairman and managing director died a year later he took over the top job. But in 1960 his company was taken over. It became one of a group of companies, and the group chairman took over the local chairmanship himself. This obviously caused strains and a year later, because they were not hitting it off, this individual had to resign under the new régime. He was unemployed for a while, and finally, in desperation, he became an outdoor sales representative for another company. So far as I know, he is still doing this kind of work today with no chance of getting back into the higher executive stream.
That is the top management case. But there are many comparable ones at the ordinary executive level and they grow all the time as there are more mergers and take-overs. This man wrote to me and said:
Pressure ought to be brought to bear on company speculators who take over one business after another and by crushing them cause unemployment among older executives and other work people alike. Thus the experience and knowledge accumulated over many years is thrust on one side.
I have found that the redundant professional man or executive becomes deeply disillusioned from his experience as he tries to get back into business life. However keen, conscientious or reliable he is, he finds the doors shut on him one by one as people learn of his age. In many cases really first-class men are turned away without proper consideration—men who would prove more effective than many of the younger ones who are holding down responsible positions in firms where older men are seeking work.
Several of these men have written to me and have offered, if I could find them the right sort of employment, to work two or three weeks without any pay at all in order to prove how good they are, but even this does not work. In any case, it certainly should not be tolerated. Many of these people feel extremely bitter when they undergo this experience. They feel that society is turning its back on them, and I believe they are right.
I will not weary the House with a long dissertation with quotes from the various letters that I have received, but there is one letter which can be used as an example and which came to me at the time when I was putting Parliamentary Questions on the subject. Here is one from an ex-superintendent of police in the Colonies. He said that he had held highly responsible administrative and command posts in that sphere in the service of the Crown until 1961, interspersed with commissioned service in the R.N.V.R. and the British Army. He continued:
I have also had administrative, clerical, accountancy, stores and labour supervision experience. When finally I had to leave the Colonial Police Service, I registered with all the Government sponsored bureaux and agencies. Through the present unchecked policy, I have found them helpless and useless. They have sunk into the inertia of a seemingly insoluble problem. The (ex-Service) Officers' Association in Victoria Street did find me a clerical grade post of a particularly humdrum nature which I could not contemplate remaining in for the rest of my life. I do not think I am being unrealistic in wanting to be something better than a stock records clerk, with my experience and background. I was awarded a mention in dispatches for distinguished service during the anti-Eoka campaign. Here I am only fit to be a clerk, driver or storekeeper. This insult makes me morose, discontented, bitter and a malcontent through no fault of one's own. It also causes friction with one's family and I would gladly spend the rest of my life fighting it in a big way. I am only 52.
One may say that here is a misfit, but this is typical of dozens of letters which I have received and, indeed, dozens of letters which have reached other hon. Members.
What is being done? There are one or two organisations which are trying hard to help people placed in this situation, but I am afraid it is an uphill struggle. There is the Over-45's Association which does very good work indeed. It is a nonprofit making concern and it has subscribers whose ages range from 45 to the late 70's. In status these people range from messengers to bank officials and chartered accountants. I understand that last year it found employment for some 270 people. But this is only scratching the surface. Thousands of people are involved. I am very glad that the Ministry of Labour has developed a free service, the Professional and Executive Register, and the Ministry has recently issued a very good leaflet which I think


is deserving of wide circulation. I hope that when the Joint Parliamentary Secretary replies he will make some reference to it. I suspect that even the Professional and Executive Register comes up very severely against this age-barrier question and I am sure that this is something which will have to be borne seriously in mind.
It may be said, "It is all very well posing this problem. This is very gloomy. One feels extremely sorry for the people involved, but what are the solutions?" In my view, there is an overwhelming case for a top-level inquiry, a study of this very difficult social problem which can affect more and more people as life progresses. It is a problem which I posed to both Ministers of Labour during the last two Governments. It has so far been rejected. I hope there may be second thoughts because I believe that the information which can be collected on the subject will be extremely valuable, far more comprehensive than I could provide, and also it will be a valuable opportunity for an official-level inquiry to seek the proper co-operation and consultation from employers and professional organisations. Actions against mergers and take-overs also would contribute something, and I hope that when we get monopoly legislation this may be one particular facet which can be examined.
Extremely important in this whole issue is the question of the transferability of pensions. Many firms would be more anxious to take on men in middle age but cannot do so because of the pension complications. These men are too old to join other pension schemes and they have to remain put, where they are. If we ended pensions anomalies we would be helping to solve half of this problem as it comes before us today.
Above all, we require a new attitude on the part of all of us to this human problem. We are living longer as a race and remaining much more active until advanced years. A man of 50 or 55 looks upon himself as being in his prime, and so he is. Some of our greatest judges have been men of advanced years and so have been some of our statesmen, leading thinkers and administrators. There is no real substitute for experience and the deep understanding of human nature which

always breeds tolerance, appreciation and, above all, utter reliability. These are the things which industry and commerce want. These are the things which I am afraid they turn their back on. Men of middle age have a great deal to contribute to the life of the nation. They feel at the moment that we are letting them down. We certainly must not do so.

3.55 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Norwood: I congratulate the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Dudley Smith) on having raised this subject. Few of us can have dealt with people in our constituencies without on occasion having come across the situation to which he refers. I should like, however, to extend the matter beyond the number and type of people to whom the hon. Member has referred. This is a problem which affects virtually every section of the community, and to an increasing extent.
There are a number of reasons for this. The special cases to which the hon. Member referred are people who, generally speaking, have been in senior employment, have taken higher salaries, and have had to meet a higher standard of performance than the average man or woman and therefore are people who could be expected to take a higher measure of risk. The hon. Member's reference to hon. Members bears on that point in some way. But the bulk of people affected by the difficulty of securing employment in their later years are those who, for one reason or another, can be described as the less competent and successful in industry and commerce.
These people, despite any trade union negotiations, are more likely to be made redundant and are less likely to be affected by arrangements entered into between unions and employers, and in small firms they are often without anyone to speak for them. Such a situation often arises after a man has been away from work owing to serious illness or injury. He may go back technically perfectly fit and able to work, but his absence from work places him at a disadvantage and often if there is redundancy or a changed organisation in the firm or in the department he is the one who is likely to go.
The first decisive matter here is the question of the attitude not of the community, as the hon. Member suggested, so much as of people who are employing others. Anyone who has had others working, for him has probably had experience of the fact that the temptation is to get the best possible person. People always want to employ those who are above average. This is a handicap which bears heavily against older men. One could describe this attitude perhaps as a subconscious forward policy. This is true in the motor industry and I can think back to the action of the British Motor Corporation in the middle of 1956 or 1957.
It is an attitude which the country may be able to afford for the sake of efficiency, but which it cannot afford from the point of view of humanity. Some people say that the answer is perfectly simple. There will be redundancy, but the answer is retraining. Whereas a man of my age, or that of the hon. Member for Brent-ford and Chiswick, can be retrained, it is not so easy to retrain a man of 55, particularly if he has had a year off work. It is very much harder for him to make the psychological adjustment than it is for a younger man.
What industry does, in effect, is to discharge on to the broad back of the community the responsibility for doing something which I think is done far too little in this country—programming the intake of people, internal employment planning. There are one or two interesting examples of this, but there is a tendency—unfortunately, it is probably growing—for firms to take in large numbers of young men without considering whether an adequate career or occupation will be offered to them.
I have seen instances where this has happened. It leads to various results. One gets in industrial concerns the same sort of thing as the classic army situation—the promotion bottleneck. It means a lack of internal planning of the people taken in and the jobs they will do.
A few of the nationalised industries and large private concerns are now doing this, but they are not typical of the standards of business management in the community as a whole. There are some notable and noble exceptions, such as the Civil Service practice of admitting

people not to highly responsible jobs but to adequate jobs on a 40–60 intake. This is by public examination. Where one is employing substantial clerical labour as the Civil Service does, one no doubt contemplates increased use of mechanised accounting equipment, and so on, and it is very reasonable to have as part of the intake people in the older age group because, in the nature of things, as one ceases to need their services they will be retiring.
I emphasise and re-emphasise the hon. Gentleman's contention that the refusal of employers to make the contributions of qualified salaried people transferable out of pension schemes is absolutely unsatisfactory and in the long run against their own interests as well as against the interests of the country. I sometimes wonder whether some pension schemes were not constructed more to hold men in employment than to confer upon them any reasonable benefit.

4.2 p.m.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: I congratulate the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Dudley Smith) on raising this subject, which is extremely important. He told us about his experience when he raised the subject previously and about the number of letters that he received. Others of us who have not raised the subject in that way know from our postbag that there are examples in our constituencies which are dreadful, bearing in mind the contribution that a man or woman over 50 could make to the well-being of the community in industry and commerce.
I wish to raise one or two constituency matters which were brought to my notice in the last week or two. Before I do that, however, I would say that, like my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Norwood), I believe that the subject of the employment problems of men and women over 50 go wider than just the executive types, a point of view expressed by the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick. It is not just a question of being thrown on the scrap heap from the point of view of employment when over the age of 50.
In the teaching profession, which I know most about, there is a tendency—it has grown up since the war—to


accept that if one is not a headmaster by 35 one can give up, that there is no use in applying for a job over the age of 35. There is a terrible tendency, certainly beyond the age of 40, for a man to write himself off because he has not been one of the "whiz kids" and got somewhere early on.
This applies also to many labourers. I have some family experience in this respect. A man can earn a great deal in his early twenties because of his physical strength, but his income goes according to a graph in the form of an inverted U. The man reaches a point where he is earning a great deal, but he cannot do that beyond 40 because his income depends on his physical strength, and by the time he is 50 it is difficult for him to obtain employment. I have half a dozen constituents who, during the past year, have had trouble in obtaining employment because in their early years they took jobs which necessitated physical skill and this is all they know how to use. I hope that my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will be able to assure us that the question of retraining is not far from the Government's mind.
The case with which I wish to deal arises from the question of pension schemes. There has been a great growth in occupational pension schemes in the last 20 years and I am sure that we are all pleased about it. But, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South said, when a man gets over the age of 50 he becomes an actuarial risk. That is what it boils down to. I had one case brought to my notice recently.
The man concerned is over the age of 50 and his case has, admittedly, been complicated by illness. He feels strongly that he will never work again. He is a skilled man of the executive type. When he was eventually sacked—that is what it came down to—he was given some of the contributions that he had paid into the pension scheme over the years but no contributions paid by the employer. He certainly did not get fair treatment as far as his own contributions were concerned.
As I have said, the case is complicated by illness but if this man had received his fair dues when he lost his employment he would have a much

better income than he has now. He has brought to my attention the fact that large numbers of men, for various reasons, such as those mentioned by the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick—take-overs or the appointment of a new manager—lose their jobs when they are over the age of 50. Unless such a man has transference rights it is impossible for him to get a job in his own occupation.
Two weeks ago, I received a delegation from journalists in the West Riding. They feel that when they get over the age of 40 it is extremely difficult to move to another newspaper. I agree that there are peculiar happenings in the newspaper industry anyway, because of take-overs and other things which complicate the problems of journalists.
There is also the question of Government employees. If one is a teacher, and leaves the profession, one only gets one's own contribution. Surely the Government could give a lead in this respect. If the Government exhort private industry to do this in the national interest, then surely the Government have a remedy in their own hands in dealing with their own employees and with those in the determination of whose salaries they have considerable say.
I hope that my hon. Friend, in reply, will be able to tell us that the Government are giving more attention to transferability of pensions rights, because, as the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick and my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South insisted, this is at the core of the problem. It is the key to the door of doing something for men over 50.
Another point concerns retraining. I am not of the opinion that it is difficult to retrain a man over the age of 50 in industry. I believe that it is something that the Government could put over not only in industries under Government control, such as the docks, but also in private industry. During the last 20 years, the myth has grown up that a man is finished once he is over the age of 50. I am sure that the Government, through the technical colleges and the unions, could do a great deal through retraining schemes.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick on raising an urgent social matter for debate.

4.10 p.m.

Sir Ronald Russell: I rise briefly to comment on a point raised by the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees), but, first, I add my congratulations to those already offered my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Dudley Smith) on raising this vitally important subject. It is gratifying to note that a number of younger Members are showing interest in the subject.
What prompted me to rise was the fact that the hon. Member for Leeds, South mentioned the newspaper industry. That industry is setting a very good example, probably to a certain extent at a loss to itself, in keeping on older men who are rendered redundant by machines, particularly in the dispatch department of certain newspapers. That is very praiseworthy even though it may be uneconomic from the point of view of running newspapers, and I hope that it will continue.
I think that hon. Members have put their finger on a weak spot in raising this pensions issue, and I hope that the Minister will be able to find a solution to this vital problem.

4.11 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Richard Marsh): It is an interesting commentary that with the exception of the hon. Member for Wembley, South (Sir R. Russell), whom we gladly accept into the under-40 club as an honorary member at any time, all hon. Members taking part in the debate are under 40. There could scarcely be a better example of hon. Members looking after the interests of others.

Mr. Rees: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for putting me in that bracket, but I regret that I am no longer in that bracket. I must put that right for the sake of my family.

Mr. Marsh: I apologise. I was assuming that my hon. Friend had a rather aged and haggard appearance for reasons other than that of age.
The hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Dudley Smith) and I have had many discussions on many different occasions because we both came into the House in 1959 and we have frequently discussed the position of younger persons in this respect. But it is an indication of

the sense of insecurity which is brought about by advancing age that until today I had never heard him criticising selection conferences for a tendency to choose younger men!
The hon. Member raised an extremely important subject—far more important than is frequently realised. He has fought this campaign and made it a speciality for a long time in an effort to obtain a fairer deal for the over-fifties. He and other hon. Members have raised this matter on many occasions, and it is interesting to note that no one has ever disagreed with them. Everyone in the House, in outside industry and in the trade unions, is united whenever the plight is raised of men and women thrown on the industrial scrap heap for no other reason than their age. Everyone signifies his agreement on this subject—and then nothing happens until someone raises the issue again on the Adjournment.
This has been going on for some years and nothing so far has changed this almost frightening situation that thousands of people every year become too old at 50 and, indeed, as has been said in the debate, frequently too old at 40. Yet in the House some of the greatest figures have made their greatest contributions in their sixties and seventies. Indeed, when we consider that Sir Winston Churchill retired from premiership at the age of 81 and the fact that he would certainly have had considerable difficulty, had he been an ordinary person, in looking for alternative employment at the age of 50, one can see how stupid this position is.
How large is this problem? The figures show that there are about 6½ million people in this country in employment who are over the age of 50. They also show that when a man or woman in that age group loses his or her job—even when it is through no fault of the person concerned and irrespective of qualifications—the difficulties of placing him or her in another job become very great indeed. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Norwood) did not make this point, but following his comments I would stress that this does not apply only to professional and executive people. The difficulties for people over the age of 50, and frequently people over the age of 40, of trying to find another occupation are as great for


manual workers as for professional and technical workers.
Of the men and boys unemployed for more than a year on 13th July last, 64 per cent. were aged 50 or over. At that age, the position becomes very serious. We talk, accurately, about a period of full employment, in the economist's sense, but, despite that, there were last July 94,789 people in this age group looking for jobs. Deliberately to refuse the right to work to people who have the ability and desire to do so is cruel in the extreme. No matter what provision the Welfare State makes in terms of financial benefit, it cannot compensate a man for the loss of independence which the refusal of work purely on the ground of age involves.
This is not just a social problem. Everyone feels sorry for these people. Everyone has a great deal of sympathy for them. But there is another aspect which is important to the nation as a whole. It is high time this country woke up to the fact that in its own interest it cannot afford to ignore the reservoir of skill and experience possessed by these people and not used by the nation.
It is frequently said—and it is one of the things which, if we say it frequently enough, no one takes any notice of—that in future people will have to get used to the fact that people will have more than one occupation in a lifetime and that they will have one, two and frequently three jobs in their working career. This is not just an interesting possibility; it is a statement of fact.
The whole industrial world is moving repidly into a period of constant technological change. We all recognise—we ascribe different reasons for it and I do not want to be controversial so close to a season of temporary cessation of hostilities between the two sides of the House—that this country has lagged behind in technological progress. It is the Government's intention to put this country back in the forefront of that progress. This means that there must be more mobility among all sections of the working population.
My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South mentioned the need for more manpower planning in industry and for industry to be able to plan its manpower requirements. The moment we proceed

to examine the manpower requirements of industry, the more obvious it becomes that we cannot ignore large numbers of people who have both skill and experience, merely because they have reached some arbitrary age. There are thousands of young people entering industries and trades which will have changed out of all recognition before they are 40 years of age. In many cases they may have completely vanished before they are 40 years of age.
All the evidence is that as a result of all these changes—changes in the balance of population, the fact that there will be more older people but fewer younger people, partly due to the increase in the school leaving age and therefore, proportionately, a smaller work force—this country is already moving towards what could be a very serious shortage of manpower. In the 1930s the threat to living standards was unemployment. Today, there is a very real danger, or at least the possibility, that expansion in large and vital sections of industry could shudder to a halt merely because the men were not available.
The Ministry of Labour recently produced the first of its manpower surveys—there will be a number more to come—which shows very clearly that the proportion of people over 50 years of age to the rest of the population will have risen very substantially by 1970 and that this group, which is becoming more and more the under-privileged section in finding employment, is becoming the largest section of the labour market. With the smaller proportion of young people available, employers must be ready in their own interests to retain or engage older workers to meet their labour requirements.
Some firms, including a number of large ones in the hon. Member's constituency, have a very good record in this connection. I always regret that some of the interesting experiments in this field carried out by a small group of enlightened employers have not received more support or publicity. There is a good deal that industry itself can do in this way. There is a great deal which a small number of firms have done and are doing.
In 1949, a firm which is well known on both sides of the House introduced a scheme to maintain staff of over 70 years


of age who wanted to go on working. In the beginning, the company was motivated primarily by a good sense of social activity and responsibility. The scheme is still working. Those people are capable of useful employment. They were taken off the production line, the workshop is self-supporting and they receive the normal engineering rates of pay. Those are people over 70 years of age in one firm. Other firms have schemes based on flat rates and piece rates which also appear to be self-supporting. The schemes are not a charitable gesture but are capable of operating as a commercial proposition.
Some firms retain their older workers within the normal production unit, but interview them from time to time to see whether they can be transferred within the firm to more suitable work. It is sheer laziness simply to get rid of a man when, if one examined the job carefully, it would probably be possible to find a useful production job that he could do. I am not, of course, suggesting that a skilled craftsman should be given a broom and be told to sweep the shop floor, but a serious look should be taken at what he can do.
O.E.C.D. has recently done a good deal of work in job redesigning and occupational training. "Job redesign" is a fearsome sort of title, but it is something which we could do a great deal more. It is remarkable when one examines examples of some of these practices, in America and Scandinavia in particular, as well as in this country, to see the extent to which older workers can be retained in their original jobs when a close look is taken at their working conditions and a few simple modifications made.
One of the things shown in the recent O.E.C.D. seminar on this subject was that when the conditions of older workers are examined to see how the job can be made more tolerable for them, in a number of instances changes are discovered which can be made for the benefit of the workers whatever their age. People were prepared to look at the job and say, "How can we change the job? Can we change the working conditions of the job to make it fit the man?"—without any loss of commercial viability.
Reference has been made by a number of hon. Members to the need to retrain older people. This, again, is something for which the Government cannot accept full responsibility. The Government are already doing a lot in this way. But employers, in their own interests—not to make a charitable gesture, but, as I keep stressing, in their own interests—should look at the extent to which they could retrain older workers.
I read recently of an interesting example in connection with this debate. We all know that there is a major shortage of good shorthand-typists, certainly in London and, indeed, throughout the whole country. It is a serious problem in many areas. We all know that there are large numbers of women who have had responsible positions in commerce and who have left to get married, as shorthand-typists always seem to do rapidly. Later, when their children have grown up, they decide that they want to return to work, although their speeds have all gone and they are not able to get a job in competition.
In New York City, a number of people have recently got together to retrain stenographers between the ages of 45 and 60. The interesting feature of that experiment was that more than 80 out of every 100 of those women were subsequently given good jobs as skilled shorthand-typists after a short period of retraining. There is really no need for employers or anybody else just to sit back and bemoan the shortage. I have shown with this one example of shorthand-typists that there is a vast reservoir of women who want jobs, and who have the ability to do them, and, as experience has shown, can quite easily be retrained in a brief time to do those jobs as well as anybody else.
We have to face it that one of the biggest problems in finding employment for the over-fifties is the simple prejudice of some employers who refuse even to interview a man above that age regardless of his qualifications. We have looked into this and it has become clear that what happens is that the exchanges receive requests for labour but with a very firm age limit placed on the candidates. As a result of this, instructions have been issued to all employment exchange staffs so that where an employer specifies an upper age limit


efforts are made to persuade him to examine candidates purely on their merits. We have had some success already, and I was grateful to the hon. Member for what he was saying, as he did, about the Ministry's Professional and Executive Register.

Mr. Dudley Smith: Does what the hon. Member is saying apply to professional people as well as artisan and manual workers?

Mr. Marsh: I was just coming to that point. It certainly will apply to all of them. It is already working.
I wish that the Ministry's Professional and Executive Register were more widely known among people outside. It is at present placing more than 7,000 people a year in professional and executive jobs, and one-quarter of those people are in this upper age limit.
As I said, we have already had some successes with this register and I will give one example. A firm notified that it wanted a manager for a wholesale distributive appointment and specified quite firmly that the candidates should be young. In accordance with the instructions to which I referred just now, an approach was made to the employer to ask him whether he would be willing to interview another man whom the Ministry's staff had in mind. That candidate was sent, and he was 55 years old, and he was accepted by that employer, who previously had said he did not even want to see anybody of that age. That job, incidentally, was paid just over £2,000 a year, so it was a responsible job.
There is a number of these examples which could be given. Under the same procedure an office manager of 53 years of age was appointed and a technical sales correspondent of 59. It is absurdly wasteful that such people with these talents should be refused employment or that employers should refuse even to see them.
The problem of pensions and pension schemes is very serious indeed. It is quite clear that one of the things which makes some employers hesitate before taking on older men is that employees frequently arrive without pension rights from their previous employers, and if the new employer is to make any decent

pension provision for them he fears he may face a very heavy cost indeed. That is why it is so important to make it possible for pension rights to be transferred when a worker changes his job. It is a very real problem indeed and the pension provisions are of real value. There are a number of reasons which—

Mr. Dudley Smith: In addition to that there are some firms whose pensions schemes do not permit them to employ men over a certain age.

Mr. Marsh: Yes. I want to make this point, because I think that it is very important.
There are a number of reasons why this loss of pension rights and this non-transferability of pension rights ought to be looked at very carefully anyhow, quite apart from this problem of older workers, but clearly it has a direct bearing on the employment of older men. The whole question of the preservation of pension rights has now been referred to a Committee of my right hon. Friend's National Joint Advisory Council for consideration, and for the production of some sort of workable solution of this problem.

Mr. Ridley: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us more about that reference? When might we have an answer to it? This is an important subject, and if the hon. Gentleman can tell us a little more about it we shall be grateful.

Mr. Marsh: My right hon. Friend referred to this when there was an exchange between him and the hon. Gentleman recently at Question Time. I think that it would be wrong to seek to put any deadline on this. It has been referred as a separate item to a Committee of the National Joint Advisory Council and we hope it will produce an answer as soon as possible. This is not a simple problem, nor one on which one would want to put a deadline.
The hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick also referred to fixed retirement ages. Firms should re-examine their pension schemes in an effort to see whether impediments of this sort are essential. Any scheme must have a minimum age for retirement, but there is no reason why this should become a compulsory age of retirement. Indeed, there is no reason at all why we should accept that 65 is the usual age of retirement.
We can all think of a number of people who are quite useless in their thirties. Mr. Speaker, I shall not produce a list here, as it might cause trouble for me as well as for you. I think that it is equally obvious that we can produce a list of people who make enormous contributions when in their sixties and seventies. I think that we ought to look at the way in which we have begun to accept that there is something magical about the figure of 65. If men are going to be dismissed, they ought to be dismissed because they cannot do the job for one reason and another, and not merely because they are 65.
The whole problem of older workers must have much wider attention and consideration than it has had so far. My right hon. Friend, having dealt with this other point, also proposes to discuss this whole question of older workers with leading employers and trade unionists

through the N.J.A.C. I hope that this examination will suggest additional means of dealing with this problem. Everybody on both sides of the House is in favour of doing something about it.
By his campaign the hon. Gentleman has highlighted the problem, but I hope that this debate will have stimulated a demand from the Press, from the politicians, from the public, and indeed from everybody else, to try to put an end to the frustration and unfairness meted out to large numbers of ordinary hardworking people whose only crime—and I say crime because they pay a very high penalty indeed—is that they seek employment after their 50th birthday.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven ,minutes to Five o'clock, till Tuesday, 19th January, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of 17th December.